Lausanne, Switzerland, 26 April 2022 – Picterra, the leading provider of geospatial machine learning software, today announced the closing of a $6.5M investment. Led by venture capital firm VI Partners, with participation from ACE & Company, the investment will enable Picterra to pursue its mission of democratizing access to Earth observation imagery and geospatial ML.
“We are delighted to announce the closure of this funding round which will allow us to continue to lead the way in geospatial intelligence. VI Partners and ACE & Company closely share our vision and we couldn’t be happier to have them on board. This investment will be used to innovate the platform even further, scale the business, and boost mass adoption from enterprise customers.” – Pierrick Poulenas, CEO & Co-Founder
Earth Observation imagery is this century’s key resource. As satellite and aerial imagery become more accessible, companies are discovering new use cases as part of their data strategy. These include proactive monitoring of transport, infrastructure, and energy networks and ensuring companies meet and exceed their ESG goals. Customers worldwide including SGS, CYIENT, Westwood, and The World Bank use Picterra in their geospatial workflows.
However, the innate scale of such use cases requires smart use of machine learning in order to get useful insights. With Picterra’s no code ML SaaS platform, users can train, manage, and deploy powerful geospatial algorithms that rapidly transform images into real-world positive impact.
As the effects of climate change continue to have a devastating impact on the planet and our lives, Picterra’s mission is to support businesses of any kind to anticipate and mitigate the associated risks, helping humanity make better-informed decisions to protect our global ecosystem.
Olivier Laplace, Partner at VI Partners, said: “In the past decade, satellite and drone prices have been reduced by factors of 100x to 1000x. This is creating an explosion of geospatial images to be analyzed in an affordable way: an exceptional opportunity for Picterra that is well-positioned to become the leader in the democratization of machine learning for geospatial analysis and its many ESG applications.”
Adam Said, Founding Partner and CEO at ACE & Company, said: “The opportunity in mass adoption of geospatial intelligence remains significant, as most organizations have not yet recognized the role this powerful tool can play in their operations. By making ML geospatial analysis accessible to most, Picterra is in a unique position to scale this market by empowering its customers to make better informed decisions in the most cost-effective way.’
About Picterra
Picterra is the first geospatial intelligence platform to enable businesses to autonomously extract insights from satellite and aerial imagery. Users can build and deploy deep-learning models quickly and securely without a single line of code. Learn more: www.picterra.ch
About VI Partners
VI Partners is the longest-established Swiss VC firm. For more than 20 years, VI Partners has been supporting innovative Technology and Healthcare companies, investing over CHF 300m in 60 ventures. VI Partners initially has been advising Venture Incubator fund, an investment vehicle founded by ten blue-chip Swiss corporations, and more recently launched VI Partners Swiss Innovation Fund. Learn more on: www.vipartners.ch
About ACE & Company
ACE & Company is a global investment group specialized in private investments, with total assets of over $1.6 bn across venture capital and private equity strategies. With headquarters in Geneva and offices in London, New York, Hong Kong, and Cairo, ACE has been supporting entrepreneurs and organizations globally, since 2005. Find out more on: www.aceandcompany.com