India’s First Earth Observation Startup Pixxel Raises $5 million

Bengaluru-based startup Pixxel is getting ready to launch its first Earth-imaging satellite later this year, with a scheduled mission aboard a Soyuz rocket. The roughly one-and-a-half-year-old company is moving quickly, and today it’s announcing a $5 million seed funding round to help it accelerate even more.

Indian venture capital firms, Lightspeed India Partners, Blume Ventures and growX ventures, led the round, which included contributions from Inventus Capital, Stanford Angels and Ryan Johnson, former founder and CEO of Blackbridge, the Canadian Earth-imaging company acquired in 2015 by Planet. Pixxel also announced Johnson would join its board of directors.

With the latest funding, Pixxel plans to expand its 25-person staff based in Bengaluru and Los Angeles, “and accelerate progress towards the deployment of its constellation,” according to the news release.

Suprotik Sinha

Suprotik Sinha is the Content Writer with Synkrama Technologies. He writes about technologies and startups in the global enterprise space. An animal lover, Suprotik, is a postgraduate from Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication (SIMC) Pune. He carries 6+ years of experience in Content Writing, and he also worked in mainstream broadcast media, where he worked as a Journalist with Ibn7 ( now known as News18 India) and Zee Media in Mumbai.