Japan satellite data, metaverse start-up raises $11m

The investors include Spiral Capital, Gree Ventures, Headline Asia, MZ Web3 Fund, and Creative Fund, formerly Go Fund. Global Brain is participating via its third fund in partnership with KDDI Corporation, while Sparx Group is investing from its Space Frontier Fund.

Several angel investors also contributed, including billionaire entrepreneur Yusaku Maezawa, who is known for being one of the first space tourists to visit the International Space Station.

The investment is considered a response to rapidly expanding demand for metaverse applications in industries such as virtual reality, gaming, urban development, defence, disaster prevention, space, and autonomous driving.

SpaceData describes itself as an artificial intelligence (AI) developer that learns about the real world and reconstructs it virtually using 3D computer graphics. The idea is to be able to generate metaverse environments with a first-person perspective rather than the aerial perspective suggested by the satellite data.

The AI interprets geospatial information related to inputs such as traffic volume, pedestrian traffic, whether it is day or night, the seasons, temperature, plant distribution, and nighttime light intensity. Structures on the ground are automatically detected, classified, and structured, with the data being used to create an immersive 3D model.

The company claims it can produce virtual representations of materials such as stone, steel, plants, and glass. The technology is said to represent physical details in a 3D environment without degradation of resolution, even when a user approaches a virtual object.

The seed capital will be used for developing intellectual property, hiring staff, and R&D toward the goal of creating a “digital twin” of the entire Earth. “As satellite data becomes higher resolution and higher frequency and other real-world data become available, [SpaceData] plans to use all available real-world data to reproduce the world in virtual space,” Sparx said in a statement.

SpaceData was founded by serial entrepreneur Katsuaki Sato in 2017 and has heretofore not raised any outside capital. It is officially based in Tokyo, but there is no physical office and some staff have never met in person. There are no full-time employees, with all development done on a free-time, side-project, or freelance basis. The plan is to continue expanding as a decentralised organisation.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• North Asia
• Media
• Technology
• Early-stage
• Japan
• Global Brain Corporation
• Spiral Ventures Japan
• Gree Ventures
• space
• metaverse
• artificial intelligence