Meet our winners
Smart Cities
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.