Meet our winners
Transport & Logistics
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.