Descartes Labs, a Santa Fe, N.M.-based geospatial intelligence technology developer, raised $20 million in a bridge round of Series B-2 funding led by Union Grove Venture Partners to support the release of new offerings next year. Descartes Labs said Friday that the increased investment brings its total fundraising to approximately $60 million and includes additional funds from its investors Crosslink Capital and March Capital Partners.
The additional investment is expected to support the firm’s efforts to leverage petascale data, satellites and sensors to develop and update a digital model of Earth supported by a searchable interface. In addition, the company is working on data refinery efforts for applications such as wildfire detection and satellite imagery analysis to support agriculture in North Africa and the Middle East and provide data for food security purposes.
It is also partnering with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for the Geospatial Cloud Analytics program intended to assist environmental authorities in identifying fracking sites and monitoring illegal fishing activities.
Descartes Labs has offices across the U.S. and offers a platform that utilizes machine learning to process satellite imagery and provide weather forecasts.