SAN FRANCISO – Sidus Space’s acquisition of Exo-Space marks a very important milestone for crowdfunding platform Spaced Ventures — its first exit.
“It’s a vindication of the concept of bringing in individual investors who see the worth in early-stage corporations before other people do,” Spaced Ventures CEO Aaron Burnett told.
Exo-Space, an organization that focuses on on-orbit edge processing software and hardware, was founded in Pasadena, California, in 2020. Exo-Space raised $208,722 on Spaced Ventures’ crowdfunding website.
“The funding we got on Spaced Ventures was what carried us to where we are actually,” said Exo-Space CEO Jeremy Allam.
Space Data Latency
Prior to its acquisition by Sidus, announced Aug. 22, Exo-Space designed and built FeatherEdge, a platform that applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to Earth remark data. Exo-Space also booked a launch in November for an on-orbit demonstration of FeatherEdge.
Within the wake of the acquisition, Exo-Space co-founders will turn out to be Sidus employees.
From the primary meeting a couple of 12 months ago, Exo-Space and Sidus “were so aligned it made sense for us to integrate our technology,” Allam said. “The more we talked, the more we realized that our goals of reducing space data latency were very aligned.”
Living on the Edge
Space-based edge processing, once considered for area of interest applications, is becoming increasingly popular.
“After we were pitching this concept back in 2020, few other corporations were attempting to do edge computing in space,” Allam said.
Now, Exodus Orbitals, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, Ramon.Space and Spiral Blue are amongst the businesses promoting space-based edge processing services and products.
Sidus announced plans in 2022 to integrate Exo-Space’s artificial intelligence software on its 3D-printed satellite, LizzieSat, a multipurpose constellation designed to offer services for presidency and industrial customers.
Spaced Ventures Investors
Alex Fisher, an angel investor who has backed greater than 35 space corporations, said in a press release, “I spend plenty of time focused on angel investing in space corporations, having revamped 35 investments, but Exo-Space wasn’t on my radar until Spaced Ventures posted them on their space investing portal. Their heavy due diligence was obviously really helpful because it’s already led to an investing exit in such a brief period of time.”
Kyle Hagge, an area investor and Morning Brew director of community, said in a press release that there are all the time risk involved in backing space startups, “so it’s amazing seeing successful story and return this early on!”