Meet our winners
agriBORA is a German start-up developing a location specific Farm Decision Support System for the smallholder agriculture sector in Africa. The principal challenge to financing and insuring smallholder farmers remains cost-effective risk evaluation. Through the system, actors in the agri-insurance and banking sectors monitor and asses different crop growth indices which inform their risk and potential assessments while smallholder farmers are provided with localized and actionable agronomic advisories to boost their farm productivity.
With the Copernicus Incubation Programme agriBORA will further develop their system to monitor the vegetative state and health of the crops as well as point to regions where crops may be susceptible to alterations in crop phenology cycle or adverse effects on crop health. This will be made possible by integrating high-resolution, objective and reliable data sets from the Copernicus data and services with other remotely sensed and in-situ datasets into intelligent algorithms. This could enable the sector to better assess the risk of financing and insuring smallholder farmers and the conditions in which they operate. ESA BIC Darmstadt will incubate agriBORA.
LandMarket
LandMarket (Field Data Zoom) is a Romanian startup that has a bold target, to provide a “service history” for agricultural fields to estimate their market value and a marketplace for them. Our service will help farmers better estimate the value of their lands, take an informed decision when buying and also present trust when selling.
The access to specific Core Data enabled in the frame of Copernicus, that is HR1/HR2 Optical Worldwide coverage (Sentinel-2A) and SAR HR2/MR1 Worldwide coverage (Sentinel-1A) enables us to analyze, process and aggregate derived knowledge in order to generate information related to crop automatic detection and field boundary detection, crop history, crop rotation, soil moisture, vegetation indices and phonology indices. Moreover, combing climate data provided in the frame of Copernicus Climate Change Service with soil geological and geophysical information and considering the average price of the fields in a specific area, we advance a product that impacts the market of Romanian agricultural land, increasing the potential of the investor farmers to trigger a more competitive Romanian agriculture. Consequently, the number of jobs in rural areas will increase, as well as the sustainable development of rural areas.
The funding from the Copernicus programme will help us implement the minimum viable product, that will later be used to attract more investments to bring it to more enhanced and complex versions.
Lockless is a start-up of Sapienza and Tor Vergata universities of Rome. Stemming from the extensive research activity of its founding team, Lockless designs and develops high-performance data processing systems, simulation platforms, parallel and concurrent data processing tools and operating system components, with ad-hoc solutions for customers and software for the general audience.
With the support of the Copernicus Incubation program, Lockless will develop XClouder, a smart tool that automatizes and makes cost-efficient the processing of Copernicus data hosted in the cloud. Every user that wants to run its algorithms in the cloud can tell XClouder which datasets have to be processed, the relevant geographic areas, the data time intervals, the required data processing schedule and the computation deadlines. XClouder automatically finds the most-cost efficient types of machines for each user algorithm, creates on-the-fly the computing platform according the user processing schedule, runs the algorithms and comes back to user with results.
XClouder minimizes the cost of the cloud data processing platforms of the user and lessens the burden of performing onerous technical management tasks. So users can focus more on the development of their applications and on business needs.
Polisensio has developed a mobile urban Air Quality Monitoring, data collection, analytics and visualization system dedicated to (smart) cities and businesses. The end product is environmental intelligence on Air Quality delivered on Polisensio’s web platform in several formats and/or through API. Using this system, the decision makers of a city can implement short-term quick response actions or long-term strategies, from basic traffic management/area closure, to policies on city landscape & road planning, investments in green vehicles and so on.
By integrating Copernicus Sentinel 5p data better forecasting & prediction models can be obtained. This is crucial, in order to identify the pollution generators regionally then have a deeper understanding on urban air pollution trends at a micro level.
With the support of Copernicus Incubation program, the team will grow with new members especially on the technical side to integrate the Sentinel 5p data but also bring the platform to full functionality.
Sobolt helps cities to become more resilient against the adverse effects of climate change and overpopulation. By developing data-driven solutions, Sobolt enables governments and large companies to make better, substantiated decisions. Through a combination of satellite data and deep learning, the current state of sustainable development is assessed and tools are offered for future planning.
Using TROPOMI data from the Copernicus program, Sobolt will offer cities worldwide insights into air quality. ‘Upgrading’ historical data from the OMI instrument, will result in a high resolution air quality dataset from 2004 until now, which enables trend analysis. Through the Copernicus Incubation Grant, the adverse effects of hot weather conditions on urban air quality can be visualized and the role of vegetation in pollution reduction can be assessed in great detail. With this information, cities can start to take real action to create a healthy, sustainable and resilient city.
Spectator.earth is a Polish start-up building an online platform to stimulate collaborative discovery and use of satellite-based information. A place for everyone to contribute to the growth of Earth Observation, Spectator offers data access centralization, processing and products publishing capabilities. The creators believe the biggest potential for this industry moving forward lies in the community. That’s why Spectator offers tools for teams and individuals to collaborate and speed up the process of getting new EO ideas ready for testing in the real world.
Copernicus Incubation gives Spectator a possibility to help more users in building their innovative applications and sharing their observations quickly. In consequence, growing the EO knowledge base and making it accessible to everyone.
Today most believe the credo: the more data the better. The question is how to extract intelligence from vast data series and how to translate this into value. This is where Survey Intelligence comes in: we help our clients in the energy sector to visualise, identify and understand their data by developing software and services to analyse time-series.
At Survey Intelligence we assist the energy sector with the transition to renewable energy. First, we help the industry to reduce its impact on the environment by increasing its efficiency and the quality of its decisions. Second, we facilitate the knowledge transfer from fossil energy production to renewable energy production by integrating subsurface and earth observation information for H2 or CO2 storage, geothermal activity and water resources management.
Survey Intelligence uses advanced geo-statistical methods for the interpretation of remote sensing data. Our mission is to make EO data indispensable for reservoir production and monitoring. Copernicus data is an essential part of our services for monitoring reservoir integrity, because it allows our clients to supervise large areas efficiently and prevent safety issues. The Copernicus Incubator will help us to further develop and integrate EO data into our services.
Vypno provides deep learning solutions for asset tracking and object detection tasks, with a focus of using synthetic data. They have developed Deep Data Engine, which is an innovative product that generates high-quality training data efficiently for deep learning tasks, with precise labeling. Vypno uses Copernicus satellite imagery data to extend Deep Data Engine so that it simulates and synthesizes realistically-rendered satellite and drone images.
The Copernicus Incubation Programme will help Vypno to extend their product and support more use cases required by customers. Through Copernicus network, Vypno also wants to reach to more global customers and partners.
The German start-up Solorrow develops a smart farming mobile app based on satellite data from the Copernicus programme. The app analyses satellite images of agricultural fields to create individual maps which show zones of differing growth potential. Using those maps for applying fertilizer, pesticides and seeds, farmers can save input material and costs while at the same time optimize yield potential. This supports a more sustainable agriculture – both for the farmer as well as for the environment.
Using Copernicus data is crucial for Solorrow, as the field potential maps, which are the heart of Solorrow, are solely based on the images from Copernicus satellites. Thus, Solorrow is highly scalable and not only available for fields in Germany but many more European countries as well as globally. To apply Solorrow field potential maps, connection to agricultural machinery is fundamental. With the support of the Copernicus Incubation program, Solorrow will take this development to the next level and focus on improving the send-to-machine process by partnering with machinery providers and multiplier platforms.
Their product – SoilEye – is a precision farming recommendation service sold to farmers. Its artificial intelligence combines two data sources: 1D soil information of ground sensors reaching soil depths of 1 meter and 2D soil information from satellites, specifically from Sentinel-1 and 2. The results are 3D soil maps which provide a platform for an absolutely new level of precision in farming, for instance for precision irrigation or fertilization. The 3D soil map platform outcome is combined with further Copernicus services, including the Copernicus Global Land Services.
The Copernicus funding is going to be the ideal support to accelerate and complete their market entry as well as to expand to worldwide markets subsequently by promoting the technology as well as the market development. The Copernicus programme will additionally deliver to them the network they need to access the right spots regarding technology and market.
OPT/NET BV is a Dutch startup that has developed TSAR AI, which helps emergency and disaster response teams to work quicker, smarter, and more effectively through on-the-fly analysis of geospatial Earth Observation Data provided by satellites. The TSAR AI solution works with Sentinel 1 data, complemented with high resolution data from TerraSAR, TanDEM and PAZ. When cloud cover permits, they plan to make use of Sentinel 2 multispectral MSI products as well.
The funding of this programme will help them achieve product-market fit. So far, they have been able to gain early traction with emergency response teams, as well as earning the support of large industry players. They will use the Copernicus funding to ramp up their marketing & sales efforts, attending industry events where they can disseminate information about TSAR AI platform and interact with potential customers and partners, as well as distribute promotional materials and explore new use cases.
The MapTiler product from Czech start-up OctoGEO offers global satellite and street maps targeting businesses. It is an affordable alternative to other providers like Google Maps, but unlike them, the maps are ads-free, redistributable, respecting the privacy of end-users and based on open data. They are provided from global infrastructure as a service or available as on-premise software and data package for deploy in a closed environment.
With the help of Copernicus Incubation, MapTiler wants to increase the quality and the frequency of updates to their satellite map. Our in-house processing of the open data from the Copernicus Sentinel programme will make our Satellite maps even more affordable to commercial entities, research facilities and other data consumers.
CyStellar is a geospatial intelligence company on a mission to deliver real-time insights for the insurance sector to support data-driven strategic and operative decision making. CyStellar remotely detects risks, classifies objects from the risk point of view, and consistently monitors risks, even the most infinitesimal changes over time. With the Copernicus Incubation Programme, CyStellar will further consolidate and improve its geospatial risk assessment capabilities.
The Copernicus Incubation will give CyStellar the opportunity to deploy a specialized line of natural catastrophe insurance solution, extend its customer base in the insurance sector, and work towards its go-to-market strategy to become a specialized insurance Managing General Agent. CyStellar will be incubated by Startupbootcamp InsurTech London.
CYBELE aims to provide evidential support in the form of satellite data for lawyers and activists collating dossiers on environmental cases. They support experts in the public and private sector, including law firms, insurance companies, states and civil society. CybELE Earth Observation (EO) investigation provides quick access to environmental crime reports for law firms and insurance companies. Saving time and money usually spent on research, the reports constitute crucial evidence of infringement of environmental laws and assess the cost of environmental damage.
With the Copernicus Incubation program, the team will now be able to develop strong proofs of concept and to prepare its future scale-up strategy.
Auravant is a Spanish big data company for agriculture. It develops and commercializes a Support Decision Tool that help farmers and agronomists to adopt precision agriculture and produce more efficiently. Auravant’s tool leverages on Sentinel imagery to allow for field zoning, variable rate sowing, fertilization, and crop monitoring. These tasks permit an optimal usage of seeds, fertilizers, herbicides and other agricultural inputs.
The Copernicus Incubation Programme will help Auravant speed up the development of an irrigation feature for european farmers, test it commercially, and accelerate their internationalization efforts. Auravant’s mission is to democratize precision agriculture, and the Copernicus partnership is keystone for taking their products to a global scale.
Swedish company Vultus AB uses space technology for waste-free farming. Vultus AB is using satellite data and prescriptive analytics to give farmers worldwide actionable recommendations regarding the nutrient needs and varying conditions of their fields. They recommend certain amounts of nitrogen use to combat over-fertilization and reduce fertilizer usage by up to 40%. This, in turn, improves crop health and soil quality and reduces the environmental costs of farming.
Vultus AB applied for the Copernicus Incubation because they want to internationally expand. They consider the partnership a great opportunity to reach new networks, build strong business relationships and, ultimately, grow their business on a global scale. They want the partnership with Copernicus to strengthen their competitive edge in a global marketplace and they hope the Copernicus Incubation Programme will assist them in their continuous journey of innovation and development. Vultus AB will be incubated by ESA BIC at Innovatum AB.
Water is the source of life, but water is also unpredictable. Due to climate change, water resources are becoming discontinuous, creating hazardous situations. Based on mathematical modeling Italian start-up MobyGIS has developed a new technology that predicts snow presence and the availability of water resources at large scale. It processes different sources of data, ranging from ground sensors, satellite data and weather forecast. MobyGIS’ results can be applied in many sectors. In tourism for instance, MobyGIS has developed the application ‘Mysnowmaps’, which allows off-piste snow explorers to plan their detailed excursion. In civil protection, MobyGIS provides a service of high resolution snow monitoring to improve avalanche prevention. In hydro-power, MobyGIS predicts water inflow in production plants to improve energy trading.
MobyGIS applied to Copernicus Incubation to use Copernicus satellite data to improve the accuracy of their technology and to scale the system worldwide. They want to integrate Copernicus satellite data into their modeling scheme and eventually test the procedure to EU mountain chains, like the Pyrenees or the Carpathians, which would be the prelude to scale the system worldwide. MobyGIS will be incubated by Trentino Sviluppo.
Irish start-up DroneSAR wants to provide all drone users with up to date satellite imagery from the Copernicus Emergency Management Service. DroneSAR has developed a software that enables commercially available drones with rescue specific functions. It allows fully autonomous flight patterns, shares locations, allows live stream to any internet browser and very soon DroneSAR will be able to automatically detect persons.
With the Copernicus Incubation Programme, DroneSAR wants to engage with experts in the relevant areas and allow them to integrate up to date drone images and video as layers on top of post-disaster satellite imagery. Through events, conferences and webinars DroneSAR wants to learn and make their vision a reality. ESA BIC Ireland will incubate DroneSAR.
German LiveEO is helping infrastructure companies to monitor their infrastructure networks in the domains of oil & gas, electricity and railways. With the data of earth observation satellites, LiveEO analyses the situation alongside the grids of these infrastructure networks, based on completely automated methods in the cloud.
LiveEO has been supported by the Copernicus Programme since the beginning. They have won the Copernicus Masters, they’re part of the Copernicus Acceleration Programme and they are using the data of Copernicus as the core of their analytics. The Copernicus Incubation Programme is enabling them to accelerate their development progress, improve their technology and bring their solutions to the market. LiveEO will get the support of the Technical University Berlin.
Unisphere is a German start-up, closing the gap between traditional aviation and space, focusing on high altitude pseudo satellites. It develops mission simulation software to operate high altitude pseudo satellites (HAPS). They are made of very light-weight structures, operate at altitudes of up to 20km for several months at a time and travel with the speed of a bicycle. With Unisphere’s integrated simulation software, they use nature as a friend, not as an enemy. Unisphere includes the HAPS performance, payload characteristics, weather forecasts, air traffic control, airspace structures and many more inputs into one software. Copernicus satellite data will provide Unisphere with additional information to improve their mission simulation software free of charge.
Near real-time pictures from space, as well as the Copernicus early warning component, are added value to HAPS flight planning. Easy access to the data through the Open Telekom Cloud was another reason for Unisphere to apply for Copernicus Incubation. While implementing near real-time satellite imagery and the early warning component into their mission planning software, Unisphere hopes to discover even more elements of Copernicus. ESA BIC Bavaria will incubate Unisphere.
Geomatic Ventures Limited is a British start-up operating in environmental safety and security. They possess a system that can identify and monitor very precise surface ground movements as an early warning system for industries like infrastructure management, natural environment, rail & road, mineral extraction and energy extraction and storage.
Geomatic Ventures wants to establish itself as a supplier of land-deformation data to the European rail industry. Copernicus Incubation Programme will support their market and business development. Geomatic Ventures wants to reach out to the European rail industry through the provision of funding to cover the traveling to meetings, the creation of marketing materials, the equipment for data processing and the support for producing legal agreements, accountant reports and contracts. GVL gets the support of the University of Nottingham.
e-Odyn is a French maritime industry and ocean observation start-up. It operates in oceanography and massive data analysis. Thanks to geolocation data transmitted by ships, the startup is using machine learning and big datasets to measure real-time ocean surface currents. All of this at a global scale.
The Copernicus marine products fit well with e-Odyn’s Omni-Situ ocean observation technology and that’s why e-Odyn applied for the incubation. E-Odyn is planning to design high potential added value services requiring to use both Omni-Situ surface currents and Copernicus products. The Incubation Programme and the proposed support is the perfect occasion to develop and test these new services. Through visibility provided by the Programme and key information from Copernicus experts, e-Odyn will engage with its audience in a better way, gain early feedback and iterate quickly to enhance its commercial products. E-Odyn gets the support of incubation-cooperative ‘The Village’ by CA Finestère.
Based in Italy, ColomboSky provides to aquaculture companies a novel solution to monitor water quality and to protect their farming sites from harmful water threats. Differently from standard in-water sensors, the combined use of the newest Copernicus satellite data (Sentinel 2 and 3) and Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service, enables a wider range of observation and the development of novel early detection algorithms. In addition to this, in-situ ground-truth and theoretical models are integrated to create daily risk maps of the presence of Harmful Algal Blooms, Jellyfishes and Oil spills. Presented on an online portal, called AquaX, they provide actionable insights to support the understanding of the water quality status on aquaculture farming locations.
With the Copernicus Incubation Programme, ColomboSky will further consolidate its modelling and forecasting capability, accelerating the product catalogue growth and the market reach. We will also expand our network, build strong key partnerships and grow the business with global scalability in mind. ESA BIC Lazio will incubate ColomboSky.
Deep Blue Globe is a start-up based in Darmstadt (Germany) developing artificial intelligence solutions for the maritime industry based on Earth observation data and satellite navigation and communications services. Deep Blue Globe has developed POSEIDON, a solution that uses Sentinels satellite data and Copernicus services to optimise the journey of ships saving them time, fuel and money on any kind of route from regional to international journeys. The solution can be offered to all kinds of fleet operators shipping cargo, including tankers, consumer goods, plus fishing fleets, ferries, and cruise liners and also small maritime operators and sailors.
The participation in the Copernicus Incubation Programme allow them to speed up the development phase, support customer outreach and consolidate the business strategy to achieve their long term goal: Establish maritime autonomous navigation powered by artificial intelligence considering real time maritime traffic and weather conditions. For this purpose, DBG is supported by ESA BIC Darmstadt.
British startup, Deep Planet’s mission is to boost global sustainability goals. The company aims to empower businesses with actionable insights derived from satellites and machine learning. Deep Planet is led by an experienced team of research and business professionals – Natalia, Sushma and Dave who met at Oxford University. The company specializes in computer vision for satellite imagery. It has developed a state-of-the-art AI system that can detect and track changes by leveraging satellite data, complementary sensors, economic indicators and human intelligence. Some of Deep Planet’s products include vineyard monitoring, soil moisture monitoring, gas Leak monitoring, etc.
Copernicus data will strengthen Deep Planet’s product portfolio and improve customer cost benefits. With the Copernicus Incubation Programme, the company will speed up its development progress and ability to bring solutions to market. Deep Planet is supported by ESA BIC UK.
GMATICS applies the newest deep learning architectures and remote sensing techniques to automatically process massive amounts of Earth Observation satellites data and generate timely alerts and rich data visualization for large infrastructure operators. The NetMoA (Network Monitoring and Alert) service is conceived to be fully integrated within customers’ operational workflow to support their field workforce in managing planned maintenance and emergency situations.
Copernicus will be a key enabler of NetMoA and of its upscaling at world-wide level through high frequency free data, contributing mission data and “pay per use” DIAS services. The Copernicus Incubation Programme will speed up GMATICS activities for the integration and validation of the new service workflow as well as for marketing the service in Italy and in Europe. GMATICS is an Italian start-up incubated at ESA BIC Lazio, hosted by LAZIO INNOVA.
GreenSense is an Austrian start-up specialized in remote sensing for agriculture. Their vision is to close the technological and cultural gap between farmers and readily available satellite products, sensor data and models. Using advanced data visualization techniques of satellite-derived information, they enable the farmer to interact with site-specific information in a cost-efficient and intuitive way. Such an application will serve the 1.5 million European farms who are not able to invest in more expensive equipment for precision farming. It will not cost more than a good smartphone.
Thanks to Copernicus data, they want to create an innovative and intuitive vision experience to improve access to information for the farmers in the field and for other professionals in the future. The Copernicus Incubation will give them the opportunity to develop a prototype and to attract investments to bring the uptake of Copernicus data to a new level.
KERMAP provides environmental insights to cities and support their ecological transition. Based on earth observation data, KERMAP develops monitoring, modelling and forecasting products on key indexes such as urban sprawl, biodiversity, urban climate and carbon storage. KERMAP is a spin-off of an academic laboratory and mainly uses technology transfer on machine learning and geography. It benefits from incubation support of IMT Atlantique and IGN, the French Institute of Geographic and Forest Information. KERMAP started to collaborate with Copernicus since 2016: KERMAP was selected in the 2016 Copernicus Masters and followed the Accelerator Program in 2017.
The Copernicus Incubation program will boost the industrialization of several proofs of concepts relying on Copernicus products. Sentinel constellations and Copernicus Land and Atmosphere products deliver global, homogeneous and continuous data and are suitable to deploy its solutions on an international scale and structuring its commercial offer.
Terramonitor is the world’s most up-to-date and comprehensive map of the globe, which is created by Finnish start-up Satellio. Terramonitor makes space data maps reachable to anyone. Smart space data means that it is easy to use and access by anyone via browsing web interface or integration to any GIS (Geographic Information System). Their technology is based on artificial intelligence and machine learning processes, which combines satellite data to multi-source data. The processes use Copernicus data (Sentinel-2) as the primary satellite data source.
Copernicus satellites provide frequent data updates with high spatial and radiometric resolution, which is suitable for monitoring the forests. With the help of the Copernicus Incubation Programme they are able to develop their services further for forestry and scale the service globally. ESA BIC Finland will incubate Terramonitor.
The German start-up sustainabill GmbH offers a cloud platform helping manufacturing companies and retailers to discover their supply chain all the way to the farm or mine and analyse the sustainability of products and suppliers. The sustainability assessment is based on self-information from suppliers enriched with other data sources. Self-information, however, is exhaustive to validate. Currently, mainly on-site audits by 3rd-parties are conducted to validate those data. This is expensive and susceptible for fraud.
Facing this, sustainabill develops an open interface to integrate satellite data for remote data analysis. Via the interface, Copernicus data and processed satellite data from other start-ups and organisations can be integrated directly into the sustainabill platform. Using those data, the sustainabill platform can automatically validate supplier information helping customers to assess supply risks and achieve their sustainability goals.
Ticinum Aerospace is a spin-off company of the University of Pavia, sprung from the experience earned along almost two decades of scientific and technical activity of the research group at the Remote Sensing Lab. Its team took part in several projects worldwide, always proposing high-level, high-quality products. Among those projects, Saturnalia commands a prominent position. The Saturnalia service collects, aggregates, and analyses data related to vine and grape growth and it uses this data to forecast wine quality. At its core lies a system for automated retrieval and analysis of Copernicus satellite data, plus data from a network of tailored, technologically advanced weather stations distributed over the areas of interest. The system can then leverage such data to predict the characteristics of the upcoming vintage, and the future wine obtained from it.
Ticinum Aerospace applied to Copernicus Incubator to take a leap forward in expanding its network of contacts, in increasing the momentum of the project, plus getting tailored tutoring to tune the business idea. Last but not least, Ticinum believes that operating under the hat of an initiative from the European Commission helps enhancing its credibility with investors and future customers.
Viridian Raven brings space to forestry. Using Sentinel-data and data from the forests, we aim to predict outbreaks of bark beetles, a destructive insect that lives inside trees. With this data, foresters in the field can take prevention measures in an early stage, to prevent large scale forest loss. This saves timber, and thus money, and helps keep the vital ecosystem balanced. In their online portal, customers can access the risk maps against these outbreaks. In these maps, they can see areas with either high or low risks for forest damage.
Copernicus-data, especially Sentinel-2, gives them a much higher resolution than other available data. The additional red-edge band enables them to observe changes in vegetation health. With the help of the Copernicus Incubation Programme they will improve their algorithms, decreasing inaccuracies around forest borders, provide accurate risk maps concerning storm damages, and completely atomize their application.
viridian-raven.com
3Bee is an electronic industry based business that designs new IoT systems for precision agriculture in farming animals: from the beekeeping sector to the broiler one. 3Bee intends to reduce chemical and antibiotic treatments using data driven solutions. 3Bee Hive-Tech is an innovative IoT diagnostic system designed for monitoring beehives, which ensures the real time analysis of the main parameters of their life, from air quality to sound spectrum and weight that helps to identify the main causes of disease and anomalous behaviors. The aim is to create value for beekeepers, changing and improving the way in which hives are managed, and providing a simpler and non-invasive solution. Hive-Tech will help in reducing bee mortality of 32%, increasing production of 30%, decreasing logistic costs by 20% and reduce treatment use by nearly 40%.
Copernicus data and services are very valuable because 3Bee wants to further develop Hive-Tech involving the analysis of satellite images. With this tool, 3Bee will be able to identify the most interesting flowering zones and the areas where pesticides are widely applied. In this way, beekeepers can know exactly where bees can thrive and are mainly threatened by chemical agents. 3Bee gets the support of ComoNext Incubator.
Tesselo’s ambition is to accelerate the world’s transition toward environmental sustainability through geospatial intelligence. We combine satellite imagery, artificial Intelligence and environmental knowledge to deliver actionable business insight to make the natural commodity supply chain management more efficient and sustainable. Our solutions target the forestry, agri-food and urban planning related sectors. For the Copernicus Incubation Program, we will focus on the timber industry: producers, transformers, distributors, insurers – enabling them to easily access and gain insight from Copernicus data. We automate imagery ingestion, processing and analysis into our online platform, which allows for continuous and real-time monitoring at any scale at 10m resolution.
Thanks to the support of the Copernicus Incubation Programme, Tesselo will develop, test and integrate new functionalities to the platform, including deep learning. Tesselo will also scale-up the customer outreach, targeting key potential customers in the main timber producing countries. Tesselo is supported by DNA-Cascais.
TETHYS Yield Estimator from Centrale Valutativa is a precision farming tool providing farmers and insurance companies with low-cost estimations of the crop development in a timeframe in a field or in a larger monocropped area. The combined use of Copernicus satellite data (Sentinel 2 and 3) and weather and soil data enables the calculation of the crop yield as the result of the daily biomass growth over the whole vegetation period. The service provides farmers with data and information useful to optimize fertilization and irrigation and to improve farm profitability; it also supports insurance companies to properly assess the weather damages occurring in insured farms, raising the efficiency of on-field appraisals.
The Copernicus Incubation will give us the opportunity to calibrate the model, to complete its automation
and to improve the commercial appeal of the service. The Yield Estimator is one of the different services offered by TETHYS Smart Farming, also including a crop monitoring service and a smart irrigation service. TETHYS services are developed by Centrale Valutativa (www.centralevalutativa.it), an innovative start-up based in Rome and incubated at ESA BIC Lazio.
Sensar develops an enterprise platform for monitoring millimeter-level deformations in civil infrastructures from satellites. Sensar’s platform allows civil engineering professionals to harness the power of Earth Observation to manage risks related to ground subsidence or structural weakness. The platform provides easy access to high quality data products based on complex satellite radar data – bringing these “InSAR” capabilities to the masses. Using the platform, enterprises can develop their own service offerings or business applications that leverage the operational use of satellite monitoring.
Copernicus is an important enabler for Sensar. The consistent and global availability of both Sentinel-1 radar data and ERA5 weather data has created a huge opportunity to provide the infrastructure monitoring “platform-as-a-service” to civil engineers across the globe. With the help of the Copernicus Incubation Programme, Sensar will further develop the technical capabilities and user experience of the platform as well as expand the marketing and sales team. Sensar is part of ESA BIC Noordwijk.
DANTE TECHNOLOGIES is a startup located in Barcelona (Spain) which develops an effective and competitive solution for the early detection and emergency management of wildfires.
Climate change and human practices have meant wildfires a problem that is becoming increasingly violent, having a devastating impact on economy and environment. Fire management is a high volume global market, but current detection systems are either too slow or unaffordable to be deployed in extensive areas. DANTE is an early warning system which features advanced methods to report and manage operations to help rapidly extinguish a fire and goes further by providing all critical information required for an effective extinction operation.
The efficient use of in-situ and Copernicus datasets led DANTE’s team to be the winner of the Copernicus Masters Disaster Management Challenge (November 2017), among other recognitions such as ESNC 2017 Catalonia. The Copernicus Incubation programme and the support from ACCIO, Catalonia Trade & Invest are an excellent opportunity to accelerate the route to market, boosting the potential of DANTE using Copernicus data.
The German Startup PriLogiX GmbH provides Supply Chain Risk and Project Management Software with a focus on Outbound Logistics. The cloud solution helps manufacturing companies to identify and minimize risks within their Supply Chain and to realize their deliveries with increased efficiency and punctuality of delivery. Most manufacturing companies rely on global supply chains, because it offers a lot of advantages, but it also increases the risks and the vulnerability. For example, incidents like natural hazards can disrupt the supply chain and lead to late shipments and to additional costs.
Therefore, PriLogiX develops a big data algorithm during the Copernicus Incubation Programme by using data of Copernicus Emergency Management Services. The algorithm will be implemented within the Supply Chain Risk and Project Management Software of PriLogiX and provide nearly real-time data alerts, as well as forecast information regarding natural hazards. Thus, it offers the manufacturing companies a huge competitive advantage, because it enables them to take the right measures with an improved reaction time. PriLogiX is part of the ESA BIC Hessen & Baden-Württemberg incubation.
SuperVision Earth is a German startup with a mission to improve the safety of gas infrastructure. They use satellite images and other data to identify risks, such as third-party construction, ground movement and vegetation, which would otherwise go unnoticed for a longer time. Their product is an automatic monitoring service, which seamlessly integrates into the customer’s pipeline management system and provides timely, actionable warnings. By using their service, gas pipeline operators reduce the risk of gas leaks, curtailing the costs connected with such incidents.
The availability of Copernicus data is a critical component of their service, allowing cost-efficient monitoring of thousands of kilometers of pipelines. Thanks to Copernicus Incubator, they will be able to rapidly improve their detection methods and bring their service to more customers. SuperVision Earth is incubated by ESA BIC Darmstadt.
Orbital EOS is a Spanish company providing solutions based on satellite observation and artificial intelligence, originally created as a spin-off of the Spanish Coast Guard. Their recently launched digital platform ISMO, provides marine pollution geo-intelligence to the Offshore/Maritime Industry, addressing the prevention, monitoring and response to marine pollution events. Based on satellite surveillance, artificial intelligence and numerical modelling, ISMO optimizes situational awareness and decision making, guaranteeing a cost-efficient environmental performance to key players in the maritime domain. The Copernicus Incubation Programme and the democratization of space data enables a disruptive approach in the management of marine pollution events, fostering a proactive monitoring of offshore assets and maritime fleet with unprecedented coverage, redundancy and cost-efficiency.
The support of Copernicus Incubation will strengthen our scaling capabilities and enable a fast product market fit, demonstrating the value of EO data in disruptive innovation for a better planet.
Numer8’s Ofish product helps fisheries across the globe to become sustainable again by helping small-scale fishermen catch more in shallow waters, while controlling illegal fishing and overfishing by industrial deep sea trawlers. Numer8’s Ofish product has two components: a user-side app to be used by small scale fishers and a central supervision system to help governments supervise fishing activity. They use Copernicus Marine services data for analyzing fishing zones, marine pollution, vessel activities, weather forecasts, and other conditions for tracking fishing activity.
With the Copernicus Incubation Programme, Ofish will further develop their algorithms to analyze fishing conditions for fisheries globally. Ofish aims to build a complete inclusive application to help fishermen catch a better yield, be safe in the seas, sell for higher margins and access financial loan easily. Ofish aims to help government in tracking overfishing and illegal fishing and improve marine conditions. This will be made possible by integrating high-resolution, and real-time data sets from the Copernicus data and services with other remotely sensed and in-situ datasets machine learning algorithms. They are incubated in ESA BIC Prague.
Spacenus is an Artificial Intelligence business providing information products to empower Agribusiness. They provide maps that show the current nutrient demand of the crops on 5 major nutrients, which helps not only to optimize the fertilizer use but also helps the farmers to comply with fertilization regulations. They study both Sentinel-2 satellite data and smartphone camera because together they help to deliver high-quality information at scale for better decision making. Smartphone based quantitative measurements helps to calibrate satellite imagery and allows them to provide quality information at global scale.
With the Copernicus incubation programme, Spacenus will further develop their Sentinel-2 based crop Dry Matter prediction model, which is key to provide precision fertilization prescription.
REFARMO GmbH is an Austrian company, which is bringing high-tech-satellite-use to the farming-industry and was founded in 2017. REFARMO is developing algorithms which are analyzing data from ground sensors and ESA Copernicus space satellites to monitor soil moisture levels at surface and root zone, to monitor crop vegetative phases and to forecast soil moisture changes up to 10 days. They are providing innovative agri-cloud solution to deliver soil moisture analytics and actionable results to the farmers to save resources and optimize production. Modern farming challenges can be addressed with their prime solutions named IPS-Irrigation prescription service and WDS-Water logging detection service which users access in a mobile friendly web application. Farmers are working hard to grow food and REFARMO is providing simple to use solutions for better field profitability.
The funding from the Copernicus programme will help them to further develop REFARMO Water logging detection service (WDS) and make it ready for commercialization within the European Market and World Wide. REFARMO Is proudly supported by European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre Austria (ESA-BIC AT) and Science Park Graz.
Powered by EO and artificial intelligence, 3D EMS is a fast and efficient golf course executive management system. Their SaaS solution is a user-friendly single page app, which combines data from satellites, drones and IoT court sensors into meaningful insights in real-time. Golf course managers and operators can now monitor and optimise their course’s energy consumption, labour and equipment use. Both Copernicus and EGNSS services fuel their solution. Optimised irrigation and improved fire safety are achieved by deriving differentiated maps from Copernicus Sentinel-2 data to check the soil moisture, soil conditions, vegetation index and state. Copernicus Sentinel-1 time-series data are used to detect and monitor grasslands, while Sentinel-3 data are used for drought monitoring. In addition to this, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service is used to better support fire management and the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service supplies imagery and reference data.
The funding from the Copernicus programme and incubation services by Invento Capital Partners will take 3D EMS to the next level by facilitating the development of the of the following 3D EMS MVP components: Single Page App, Golf course Visual Recognition model, Tiger a Watson AI based virtual assistant with Convenience of a fully digitised golf course concierge service + embedded experience of a professional golf course manager virtual assistant, GSM/IoT tags for pace of play and maintenance workflow of optimization. The incubation will be topped off by solution testing and sales demos in Croatia, EU and beyond.
Hurricane Unwinder forecasts tropical cyclones using computer vision on satellite images and measures them using an IoT device that floats around with the winds. The Copernicus Incubation Programme allows for R&D and prototyping of advanced products utilizing the full resolution of Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 images.
SOWIT leverages all the power of remote-sensing (drone & satellite), agronomy and AI to provide decision support systems to African farmers. SOWIT fills the information gap allowing farmers to optimize inputs and improve their productivity, especially those facing huge instability related to global warming and extreme yield and input volatility. Our solutions provide farmers with critical information such as water stress and nitrogen deficiency to better control their operations (sowing, fertilization, harvesting).
Integrating Copernicus Incubation program allows us to enrich our imagery-based decision support tools, provide more dynamic data and insights to our customers in Africa and rely on best-in-class satellite imagery integration processes to further deploy our decision support tools helping farmers to determine the best harvest-time and forecast yields.
SOWIT strives to be the leading player in providing information to African farmers thanks to the operationalization of high-end remote-sensing and agronomic research. The funding will enable to cross-pollinate, on the ground, leading agronomic research and high-end remote-sensing capabilities.
Breeze Technologies is a leader in the fields of air quality sensors, air quality data and air quality analytics software. The company leverages the internet of things and artificial intelligence to help cities, businesses and other organisations create better clean air action plans and a more livable environment.
The support of the Copernicus Incubator will help Breeze Technologies to further integrate Copernicus Sentinel 5P and other earth observation data into its global Environmental Intelligence Cloud to provide its service and air quality data models even for regions with no own sensing infrastructure. This will allow a host of new air quality data-based applications and enable the startup to create a bigger social and environmental impact.
Flycom Technologies is the industry‘s leading provider of airborne preventive and predictive maintenance services, data processing and data management solutions. Additionally, we provide our internally developed proprietary geographic information system GMS-GIS to customers from different industry sectors. Among others, our GMS-GIS is used by clients from the (re)insurance sector.
With the support provided by the Copernicus Incubation Programme, Flycom Technologies will develop a Natural Hazard Module which can be used as an extension to GMS-GIS or as a standalone application customized for the (re)insurance industry. Natural Hazards Module will bring together Earth Observation data (Sentinel 1 and Sentinel 2), UAV imagery, weather data and client data in one location intelligence platform, with the key purpose of detecting different types of natural hazards (i.e. flood, droughts, wildfires, heavy rain). Users of Natural Hazards Module will exploit the rich potential of Copernicus data through different use-cases, such as risk reports for underwriting prior events or claims management after the event. The key feature of the proposed solution is quick response time since as soon geospatial data becomes available it is instantly imported and analysed, saving time and money for the client. Besides the development of a new Module, the support provided by the Copernicus Incubation Programme will enable Flycom Technologies to finalize its go-to-market approach and expand its customer base in the (re)insurance industry.
Riscognition is a company focusing on data driven information to improve business intelligence supporting supply chain management especially for the commodity and raw materials markets. Big data and AI are the technologies that are applied to disrupt today’s business processes. Riscognition is a geospatial data technology company specialising in the processing of Earth Observation (EO) imagery, the application of big data processes to location-based information and the transformation of datasets into actionable information for the procurement and supply chain risk management. Riscognition develops innovative geospatial solutions by integrating different kinds of spatial and non-spatial data.
Copernicus is a core data source for our services. The open data policy has made it possible for Riscognition to develop advanced services with low data cost overheads. As EO specialists, we know the breadth of data and information that can be accessed from Copernicus Sentinel imagery and we are currently focusing on multi-temporal fine spatial resolution imagery from both SAR and optical sensors. These are technical advantages of the Sentinel program over other open EO data platforms.
As our technical developments continue, we are looking to fund our next development stage to improve our existing Copernicus based services. We also need funding to focus on gaining traction through marketing and securing our first paying customers. Through the Copernicus Incubator, we will expand our network to help connect with the right customers and bring our solutions to the next level.
RoadEO is developing a global road quality data and monitoring platform helping road authorities decide when and where the next road segment needs to be maintained. To achieve our goal we are combining historical analysis with novel big data sources such as crowdsourced smartphones, connected cars and of course earth observation. The Copernicus Incubation programme will help us to further our utilisation of both optical and radar satellite instrumentation to develop commercial services and prepare us for a bigger investment round needed to scale our proposition globally.
World from Space is helping companies developing agricultural apps to increase their value proposition to farmers by integrating advanced satellite-based products.
Our flagship DynaCrop API enables fast and cheap integration of ready-made satellite products into a farm management software or any other agricultural app. It has a global coverage, extended documentation and price accessible for every company from startup to corporation.
Dynacrop API is a “computer to computer” interface that offers value-added products based on our expertise in earth observation and big data processing for agricultural purposes. Dynacrop turns complex satellite observations into understandable insights about the current state of the fields, crop growth and anomalies, soil moisture and field zoning for variable application.
Service is based on time series analysis of Copernicus Sentinel 2 for vegetation monitoring and Copernicus Sentinel 1 for soil moisture mapping. The Copernicus Incubation Programme helps us with reaching to more global customers by speeding up our sales and digital marketing in non-English languages.
UptoEarth is a Start-up founded in April 2019 with the goal of simplifying the monitoring process of carbon projects in agriculture to generate revenues for farmers that decide to implement practices for sequestrating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
While nowadays the Soil Organic Carbon is measured by analysing soil samples which makes it difficult for agriculture to participate, using our system will guarantee a strong growth of agriculture related carbon projects and therefore a worldwide positive trend towards the achievements of Sustainable Development Goals.
Our system heavily relies on the EC Copernicus Programme, which provide various insides on soil and Soil Organic Carbon with the advantages of short revisit time, high coverage and high resolution.
The company is currently incubated at the Business Incubator Centre of the ESA in Darmstadt and is partly funded by the European Union through the EFRE Programme. The funding from the Copernicus Incubation programme will help us implementing a pilot for validating out system, which will allow us to be recognized and entering the market.
With the flick of a switch, any ship can opt out of legacy ship tracking systems, such as the AIS. This means that it is possible to hide or conceal nefarious activities performed in the world’s oceans – which covers more than 70% of the earth surface. To provide deeper insights into maritime activity, Vake is using machine learning in satellite imagery to obtain the truth about any activity happening there.
Being based in Norway, Vake will leverage the deep insights on maritime activity that has been built over centuries and combine it with the latest developments within Big Data and Machine Learning to detect and present deep insights for any vessel. By building a database of spectral fingerprints over time, it will be possible to provide added levels of detail on what is happening.
With the Copernicus Incubation program, the team will be able to specialise the Vake algorithm to detect and classify large vessels in Sentinel-2 imagery and in determining the value of delivering information on these vessel movements to ship owners, charterers, freight traders, and oil and gas market traders.