Meet our winners
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.
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.
