What Drives Technology Innovation in New Space?: A Preliminary Analysis of Venture Capital Investments in Earth Observation Start-Ups

This article analyzes venture capital (VC) investments in the Earth observation (EO) industry, with the aim of identifying technology trends. We collected tech- and investment-related publicly available data on all private, nonsubsidiary companies using their own satellite constellation or other EO instruments as needed to solve the problem of remote sensing of Earth's surface in the optical part of the electromagnetic spectrum and that were attracting investment and announcing plans for the future, as of 31 December 2016. We refer to these companies as EO startups. In the final sample, there are nine EO start-ups and 21 instruments used in their missions.

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