User:Davidecoursey/sandbox/Descartes Labs

Descartes Labs

Sidebar facts

Type: Private

Industry: satellite imagery, image processing, big data, computing, machine intelligence

Founded: 2014

Founders: Mark Johnson, Steven Brumby, Mike Warren, Brendt Wohlberg, Rick Chartlan, Tim Kelton, Mark Mathis, Adam Smith

Headquarter: Santa Fe, NM

Area served: Worldwide

Key people: Mark Johnson, CEO

Products: cloud-based supercomputing platform

Services: satellite-based Earth imaging and analytics

Number of employees: 40

Website: www.descarteslabs.com

About
Descartes Labs is an American company that created a cloud-based supercomputing platform for the application of machine intelligence to satellite imagery. The platform provides scientists the ability to analyze satellite imagery data for remote sensing applications such as determining rates of deforestation, forecasting food supplies, identifying where new wind farms are being constructed, and more.

The company is headquartered in Santa Fe, NM and has additional offices in Los Alamos NM, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and New York.

History
The company’s image-recognition technology originally developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) under the supervision of Steven Brumby, Mark Johnson’s co-founder. Together, Johnson and Brumby spun the team and IP out from the lab and founded Descartes Labs in 2014.

Corn & Soy Yield Forecasts (U.S.)

During the 2015 growing season in the United States, Descartes Labs released its first corn forecast ahead of the USDA’s August Crop Production Report, and then continued these reports monthly through the growing season. In September 2016, soy yields were added and Descartes Labs launched its forecast app to deliver corn and soy yields to the public weekly.

DARPA grant

In March 2017, Descartes Labs announced it had been awarded a $1.5 million grant by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as part of its SBIR Phase II program to analyze, monitor, and forecast wheat crops across the Middle East and North Africa.

Funding
In 2015, Descartes Labs raised $3.3 million after the company spun out of The Los Alamos National Laboratory.

In November 2015, the company raised an additional $5 million in Series A funding led by by Cultivian Sandbox, a venture fund in Chicago focused on agriculture, as well as Crosslink Capital, TenOneTen, DataCollective and ValueStream Labs.

In August of 2017, Descartes Labs raised $30 million in Series B financing led by March Capital, with Crosslink Capital and Cultivian Sandbox participating along with a Descartes Labs, customer, Cargill.