An Argentine startup, one step away from being a unicorn: received great investment from former US Treasury Secretary

Sometimes seems to forget, but in the country there are talents working on projects that truly point.In the case of Emiliano Kargieman, the goal is literally hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.

This is the founder of Satellogic, the Argentine company that seeks to democratize access to space and that already put in orbit, more than a dozen low -cost nanosatellites, most of the last years in recent years.

From these, your company is responsible for studying all kinds of phenomena in real time: from climate change to traffic on routes or agricultural production that crosses the world day by day.

In total, Satellogic already carries 21 commercial satellites in orbit, among which are fresh and sweet potato, Captain Beto, Tita, Milanesat and Manolito, all nicknamed in a Creole way.

Satellogic ya lleva lanzados 21 satélites comerciales en órbita

The company grew exponentially this last year.In 2021 he received an important investment from the Millionaire Badge of the Elon Musk space sector, through his company Space X, which will be in charge of the development of his coming satellites.

Also, he announced his departure to the New York Stock Exchange last July through a fusion with the CF Acquisition Corp firm.V of singer Fitzgerald, which will allow you to quote Nasdaq with the SATL symbol soon.At that time its market valuation climbed to US $ 850 million.

Now, the group received a new pleasant news for their business, and aim at higher tpdavía this 2022.And is that the Liberty Strategic Capital Fund, belonging to the former EE Secretary of Treasury.UU.Steven Mnuchin will invest US $ 150 million in the firm created in 2010.Thus, Satellogic was one step away from becoming the 12th Unicorn of Argentina.

Mnuchin es un banquero, productor de cine​ y administrador de fondos estadounidense, que fue canciller de su país en la presidencia de Donald Trump y es conocido por tener un buen ojo a la hora de invertir en empresas.

Steven Mnuchin, banquero, inversor y ex secretario del tesoro durante la presidencia de Donald Trump

"We hope to continue our mission to democratize access to geospatial data with this association," the company analyzed in a statement.

The look set in space

Emiliano Kargieman usually says that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" and is on its way to achieve it.

After spending a summer at Nasa Ames Campus, in Silicon Valley, Kargieman, a young people passionate about computers and space, began the process to develop his new project in which he would apply all his experience learned so far for the industry ofThe satellites.

The idea was to build a platform to provide space information services but without large investments in infrastructure.To achieve this, he called his lifelong friend and with whom he had founded Core, Gerardo Richarte, current CTO of Satellogic, and put themselves into action.

Una startup argentina, a un paso de ser unicornio: recibió gran inversión del ex secretario del Tesoro de EEUU

"Satellogic was born from a reflection on how to make a better use of land resources," explained his partner years later.But the duo at that time knew little about satellites.So they decided to apply some software ideas to that new world.

Basically, the industry did was design it designed to last a long time, but that brought a very high cost.Kargieman and Richarte faced the project with an opposite logic: invest as little as possible and not worry about failures, since it would be cheap to replace them and with more modern technology.This will also allow more often satellites.

Emiliano Kargieman, fundador de Satellogic

But what do they do?

The company manufactures nanosatellites designed to be much cheaper than the traditional ones: 1.000 times cheaper, according to Kargieman himself.Since its foundation, many have already put in orbit that are more light and small than the traditional ones, and with the capacity to occur at scale.

They measure a little less than a meter and weigh 40 kilos, when traditional satellites weigh hundreds.Thus, the company works on the formation of a constellation to take photos of the land that allow obtaining accessible geospatial information for everyday decision making, in all types of industries.

The capacity of each of the Nanosatelites allows to collect about 300.000 square kilometers of data daily.And they have the ability to produce full motion of up to two minutes.

With the images obtained, the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence team, Satellogic collects data that it then provides to its clients, that they can be private companies or governments.

Satellogic recolecta datos que luego le provee a sus clientes, que pueden ser empresas privadas o gobiernos

"Satellogic is a company that is building an engine to understand what happens on planet Earth, in real time.Our goal is to analyze information from each square meter and derive knowledge to improve decision making, governments and individuals, "is the definition that Kargieman gives about her business.

Thus, segments such as agriculture, forestry, energy, finance or even insurance can access relevant information for your business.It is, in rigor, a new market of a potential size of US $ 1550.000 million in which they are pioneers.

From Satellogic they believe that the monitoring of real -time changes at planetary scale will transform people's relationship with the planet, and will help face the most pressing challenges.

The company is already working with large agro and oil companies, helping them monitor assets such as pipeline.

The first satellite of the fleet was released in 2013, and baptized "Captain Beto".The first three to get to space were prototypes, and the rest is already in a position to capture high resolution data.Orbit about 450 kilometers high and move to 27.000 kilometers per hour, giving a complete turn to the earth every 90 minutes.

La empresa fabrica nanosatélites pensados para que sean mucho más baratos que los tradicionales, y con muchas más funcionalidades

Dream big

Based in Buenos Aires, from where its research and development team works, the firm has already planted flag in other countries and in total employs about 180 satellite engineers, artificial intelligence experts and solution specialists.

In 2014 they moved the factory to Montevideo becauseBusiness Development Centers in Miami and Beijing.

While adding customers around the world, in the entrepreneurial ecosystem they already catalog it as a firm candidate to become another Argentine unicorn, especially because of the strong impulse that the aerospace industry has had in recent years.Currently, its valuation exceeds US $ 500 million, but for analysts its value has no roof.

To grow, the firm has already received capital of investors such as Tencent (China), the IDB Lab (United States), Pitanga (Brazil), Capital Value Group (United States) and Crunchfund (United States).

Likewise, last year he associated with the Chinese firm Abdas, a data science specialist, to create a data fleet, something unusual for that country, which does not usually hire foreign signatures to provide space images.

In that market, in addition to having its commercial office, it also got another investment, which came from the gigantic Tencent fund in a round of US $ 50 million.

Despite all the laurels and praisewords, the company "does not believe it".Far from this, he continues to work on the development of new products and businesses, heading to a space conquest that, little by little, is taking shape.

Satellogic, ¿el próximos unicornio nacional?

"We do not think as an innovative company.We get objectives and problems difficult to solve and we go for resolution.That forces you to do things differently, "says its founder, at the same time establishing a manifesto of what Startup means.

Meanwhile, Kargieman's idealistic head already polishes its most ambitious project: to achieve complete real -time monitoring that allows us to understand everything that happens on the planet and thus solve great problems of humanity such as food, energy and energy distributionNatural Resources Management.The technology is now to be sent to space.

"Our ambition is to do that, improve conditions for everyone.If we can look back in 15 years and have done that, we will be happy ".Tools are not missing.

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The company's operation is a clear example of globalization: programmers are in Buenos Aires;Part of the software is done in Israel, and the factory was installed in the Free Zone of Uruguay, because of the bureaucratic impediments of Argentina.

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