Geospatial Data Intelligence startup, Blue Sky Analytics (BSA) has announced the closing of a $1.2 million seed round, led by BEENEXT Emerging Asia Pte. Ltd. Zerodha-backed Rainmatter Capital Private Limited and Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs also joined the round.
Blue Sky is building AI-powered infrastructure to analyze every pixel on the planet to retrieve the pertaining insights on air quality, water pollution, heat index, flood risk, and more. By leveraging satellite data, cloud computing, and AI, Blue Sky aims to inform various agents of the market and society with high quality, accessible, and democratized environmental data.
Blue Sky Analytics is founded by sibling duo Abhilasha (CEO) and Kshitij Purwar (CTO). In 2018, Abhilasha was considering a PhD on the “Climate Change induced Financial Crisis” but instead decided to build Blue Sky Analytics on this thesis. Later in 2019, Mark Carney, Governor of Bank of England warned that the climate crisis could lead to $20 Trillion risk to the global economy.
“The Covid crisis has made it clear how vulnerable our investment portfolios and economic structures are. But this is just the trailer and the real crisis of the decade is climate change. At Blue Sky, our goal is to build exemplary data products that can assist global customers in quantifying climate risk and making sustainable investment decisions” said Abhilasha Purwar
"Over the last couple of years, there has been an increased focus on geospatial technology. There is strong potential in this segment and we see tremendous scope for innovation, especially in a post COVID era where we need to support sustainable solutions. We would like to see Blue Sky Datasets become the gold standard for climate-based decision making across industries" - Teruhide Sato, Founder & Managing Partner, BEENEXT.
In 2019, Blue Sky unveiled BreeZo: a Pan-India Air Quality dataset available as APIs for researchers, governments, and private companies. The company is now working on launching Zuri - a forest and farm fire management system.
"This is Rainmatter's first climate-tech investment. Climate change is the single biggest problem humanity should be collectively working to combat. We are very passionate about climate action and would encourage more entrepreneurs to solve climate issues through tech,” Nithin Kamath, Founder & CEO of Zerodha, India's largest trading platform said.
This has been an exceptional year for BSA. In addition to closing this seed round, Blue Sky, selected as part of the MIT Solve 2019 Challenge, won the AI Innovation Prize supported by the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and Schmidt Future for environment monitoring products. Achieving all of this in the midst of the global economic recession brought on by the Coronavirus Pandemic demonstrates the foresight of the idea and the vision of the team working at the frontlines of the incoming climate crisis.
About Blue Sky Analytics
Blue Sky Analytics is a Geospatial Data Intelligence startup that is leveraging AI/ML to optimally analyze satellite data. The company sells a variety of datasets via its APIs for better monitoring, ESG investments, and climate risk assessment. In the coming decade, BSA envisions to become the data backbone of a low carbon economy.
About BEENEXT Emerging Asia Pte. Ltd.
BEENEXT is a Venture Capital fund managed by serial entrepreneurs that focuses on assisting founders with its operational experience, network, trust, unique perspectives, and the capital. The team invests in early-stage tech start-ups that are focused on building the new digital platforms driven by the data network. BEENEXT aims to establish a platform of founders, by the founders and for the founders across the globe, primarily in South East Asia, India and Japan. Since its establishment in 2015, the team has invested in over 180 companies globally.
Website: www.beenext.com
About Rainmatter Capital Private Limited
Rainmatter — an initiative by Zerodha — funds and incubates innovative Indian fintech startups. The Bangalore-based incubator provides well-equipped workspaces, mentorship, and funding ($100K-$1M) to innovative startups in the capital markets space in exchange for minority stakes. Rainmatter is also now venturing into Climate Action, with BSA as the first investment in this space.
Website: https://rainmatter.com
