PARIS — Airbus Defense and Space’s Intelligence business announced a strategic partnership Sept. 12 with Orbital Insight, a Silicon Valley geospatial analytics startup, to build a suite of geospatial analytics services and tools.
Through the agreement, Orbital Insight will gain access to Airbus’ Pleiades and Spot satellite imagery and Airbus will obtain Orbital Insight’s analytics services, François Lombard, Airbus senior vice president and head of intelligence, told SpaceNews at the World Satellite Business Week conference here.
“We build bridges between our database and their tools,” Lombard said. “We will integrate their analytics on our world-class platform.”
Orbital Insight is the first analytics partner for OneAtlas, Airbus’ digital platform. OneAtlas is a collaborative environment designed to give customers access to frequently updated satellite imagery to perform large-scale image processing and extract industry-specific insight. Airbus also provides products tailored for government and commercial markets through OneAtlas.
Airbus Defense and Space has partnerships with many large and small companies.
“Strategic alliances are becoming increasingly important,” Lombard said. “There is a lot of investment and a lot of new players in the industry. We need to pick partners who will helps us continue to grow and continue developing our products.”
Airbus’ partnership with Orbital Insight is the product of “hard work over the last 12 months,” Lombard said. “We had to select the right partner and get the partnership details right.”
In 2017, Orbital Insight raised $50 million in a Series C funding round.
