WASHINGTON — An Indian startup has raised $10 million to start out development of business space situational awareness (SSA) capabilities that may include data from spacecraft.
Bengaluru-based Digantara announced June 20 it raised the funding in a Series A1 round led by Peak XV Partners, a enterprise fund until recently often called Sequoia Capital India. Several other investors participated, including Kalaari Capital, which provided the corporate with $2.5 million in seed capital in 2021.
Digantara is developing a system called the Space Mission Assurance Platform, or Space-MAP, to gather and analyze SSA data. Anirudh Sharma, co-founder and chief executive of Digantara, told SpaceNews that the system currently uses data “from select agencies and business corporations” that it analyzes to discover potential collision risks. The corporate can also be establishing a groundbased optical SSA observatory in India.
He said the corporate plans to make use of much of the brand new funding round to start out work on smallsats equipped with electro-optical sensors to gather SSA data. The satellites, a mix of 6U and 12U cubesats, shall be procured from an unnamed vendor, with Digantara developing the payloads.
The primary phase of that effort involves eight cubesats placed in low Earth orbits with high densities of objects. “These satellites will enhance our data collection capabilities and strengthen our Space Mission Assurance Platform,” he said. “These missions will enable us to further validate and exhibit the effectiveness of our technology and services.”
The funding may even support advancing the Space-MAP system itself. Sharma said the corporate is other sources of information, including from star trackers on other spacecraft, to enhance the platform.
“The team at Digantara is working towards creating essentially the most advanced SSA data collection infrastructure. We consider that this can result in significant capability within the life cycle of managing satellites,” said Shailesh Lakhani, managing director of Peak XV Partners, in an announcement about its investment in Digantara.
Sharma said the 30-person company is already talking to investors about its next funding round, which he expects to lift inside the following 15 months to support its “go-to-market strategy” and expansion plans. He didn’t disclose how much he’s seeking to raise in that future round.