Umbra
Announces $32M Financing
Umbra,
Inc., has raised $32 million in equity
financing. The financing was led by the family
office venture fund of John Burbank, founder of
hedge fund Passport Capital, with participation
from Umbra’s existing investors - CrossCut
Ventures, Starbridge Ventures, Hemisphere
Ventures, PonValley, and others.
Umbra
invented the world's only microsatellite that
can see through clouds, at night, in high
resolution (<25 cm GSD). Umbra has agreements to
deliver data to the United States government and
commercial geospatial intelligence (GEOINT)
firms.
Umbra was
founded with a contract from a prime aerospace
and defense firm. Umbra used this capital to
build hardware for its commercial mission
without equity financing, and to remain American
owned, controlled, and operated.
David
Langan, Umbra’s CEO, said of the company’s
favorable market position, “Umbra has been on
the inside looking out, which gave us an
advantage with the United States government and
primes, ultimately allowing us to win important
contracts critical to future space
architectures.”
Umbra has
built and developed multiple satellites since
its formation. Umbra plans continue to
manufacture spacecraft and begin launching
satellites for their commercial missions this
year.
Umbra has a
desire to reduce the cost of radar data while
offering unrivaled product quality. “When we
embarked on the commercial business it was clear
– Umbra needed to invent something new to create
value for our customers.” said Gabe Dominocielo,
Umbra’s co-founder.
Recently,
Umbra was granted a patent for its deployable
antenna, which allows the company to launch
multiple satellites on a SpaceX rideshare.
Umbra’s antenna is supported by 1200 MHz
bandwidth radar. The spacecraft has an ability
to resolve objects smaller than 25 centimeters
from space and can acquire targets at very long
ranges, meaning Umbra only needs a single
satellite, not dozens, to outperform existing or
known planned satellite architecture.
Dominocielo, continued, “Our proprietary
technology improves satellite performance, data
quality and can collect many areas of interest
in high resolution, which allows us to offer
lower prices.”
Umbra
expects to be the only provider of these types
of radar products in the United States and will
be selling this 25-centimeter imagery
commercially with its issued NOAA license.
Umbra’s
revenue, in conjunction with the new capital,
will be used to support customer needs such as
free tasking, pilot programs and direct
satellite access. Umbra’s market hypothesis is
designed to create a thriving commercial Earth
observation industry through analytics
partnerships to deliver valuable insights which
were previously unachievable.