TAMPA, Fla. — Climate data startup Amini has raised $2 million for a satellite constellation to assemble more Africa-focused environmental information.
European climate technology fund Pale Blue Dot led the pre-seed funding round, Amini announced May 18, supporting a six-month-old enterprise currently using public satellite data to supply intelligence for smallholder farmers on the continent.
Amini’s aggregation and analytics software taps into European Space Agency Sentinel and NASA Landsat data to deliver information on drought, flood, soil, and crop health.
Kate Kallot, Amini’s CEO with a background in artificial intelligence technology, said she founded the startup in December after realizing a major gap in African-specific environmental data throughout the United Nations’ latest climate change conference.
Although incorporated in Delaware, Kallot said all eight Amini employees are based in Nairobi, Kenya, where it plans to greater than double in size this yr.
“The digital infrastructure we take with no consideration in other parts of the world, including [satellite] constellations, aren’t designed for Africa,” Kallot said via email.
Landsat’s resolution is sufficient for providing intelligence for U.S. mega-farms with a single crop, she said, but shouldn’t be optimized for much smaller farms in Africa with multiple crop varieties and different topologies.
“It’s a distinct context,” she said, and “while you get out of densely populated areas — Africa becomes dark with a few of these providers.”
While Planet and other private small satellite operators goal this market, Kallot said Amini goals to supply solutions that may be cheaper for purchasers within the region.
The corporate shouldn’t be able to discuss details about this proposed constellation, including when it could deploy its first satellite.
Climate business boost
Africa has about 65% of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land, in line with the African Development Bank; nonetheless, countries across the continent collectively only account for 3% of world GDP.
Amini says an absence of reliable and trustworthy agricultural data is partly guilty for this disparity since it hampers business decisions and capital allocation.
The corporate said its first customers have come from the agricultural insurance market, where Amini’s analytics platform helps to enhance coverage solutions for the sector.
As more multinational firms seek precise measurements of their carbon footprint, and the flexibility to report their environmental impact to investors and customers, Amini also sees a growing business opportunity in helping to observe supply chains.
Other early-stage investors in the corporate’s pre-seed round include Superorganism, RaliCap, W3i, and Emurgo Kepple Ventures.