Helen Ventures invests in LiveEO, an Earth Observation Startup - Series A investment accelerates global expansion

LiveEO analyzes satellite imagery with artificial intelligence to monitor infrastructure grids such as railways, electricity grids or pipelines and enables the operators of these assets to save operational expenses and improve performance. Currently LiveEO can count more than 30 grid operators from all over the world as their customers including Deutsche Bahn (Europe’s biggest railway operator), electrical grid operators such as multiple E.ON subsidiaries including e.dis, Bayernwerk (Germany), Tensio TS AS (Norway), E-Redes (former EDP, Portugal) and pipeline operators such as Gascade (Germany).

Funding round strengthens the sales development and expansion into new markets

- This funding round is a huge milestone for LiveEO. Over the last 3 years we’ve built up a unique technology stack to analyze earth observation data at scale and we now can realize many new revolutionary features on the basis of this tech backbone, says Daniel Seidel, co-founder of LiveEO.

- Additionally we will be able to invest heavily in our sales and business development teams to bring our space based technology to more customers all over the globe, adds Sven Przywarra, LiveEO’s other co-founder.

After the funding round LiveEO will focus on strengthening their business development to build up a global partner and customer network, aim for the market leadership position in the utility market, and start the expansion into the US and adjacent markets.

End-to-End asset monitoring for critical infrastructure on a global scale

LiveEO’s platform, which also has been supported by the European Space Agency with nearly €800k through their ESA Space Solutions team, combines satellite data from a multitude of sources with other datasets and analyses this data stack via AI to identify external threats for example alongside railway grids, electricity grids, and oil and gas networks. The generated actionable insights on asset level are then brought to decision makers and operational personnel via LiveEO’s web & mobile app and API integrations into widespread asset management systems.

Currently, the monitoring process for such outdoor assets is scarcely digitized and relies heavily on manual inspection processes, which makes it slow and expensive, and increases the risk for various damages from power outages to wildfires and leakages. LiveEO’s solution increases safety and reliability, decreases operating expenses, and transforms business processes. In total, LiveEO has already analyzed infrastructure grids with a combined length of more than 1 Mio km for some of the largest asset owners in the world.

- LiveEO is at the forefront of a brand new industry, monitoring large scale assets from space. We are really excited about the opportunities that the ongoing satellite data service revolution provides for improving safety and reliability of high-value assets as well as ensuring continuous monitoring for asset owners. We will gain valuable insights on how earth observation services can be used in the energy sector in the future, comments Dr. Terhi Vapola, Head of Helen Ventures.

The New Space revolution opens doors for software companies

LiveEO’s development is another example of the rapidly developing commercialization of the space industry. During the last decade a miniaturization of satellites and cheaper access to space has triggered a hardware revolution resulting in an advanced satellite based earth observation data infrastructure. Now the industry is undergoing a second revolution where software companies, like LiveEO, are utilizing these data streams for monitoring every square meter on earth.

- The btov Industrial Technologies team has been surveying business opportunities in the New Space sector for quite some time. We were looking for an EO service company that would solve a pressing problem for asset owners across a number of sectors with a real end-to-end service. We are convinced LiveEO delivers tangible cost savings and service quality improvements to its expanding customer base and are looking forward to exploring market verticals beyond the utility sector, for example mining, civil infrastructure and agriculture, comments Dr. Christian Reitberger from btov Partners.

- We are incredibly proud of Sven and Daniel for following their great passion for space every day anew and creating one of the most exciting global new space companies for end-to-end asset monitoring of critical infrastructure. We warmly welcome our new friends and investors and look forward to continuing our journey together, comments Peter Richarz, Managing Partner of DvH Ventures.

Although LiveEO’s current focus is the infrastructure sector, the founders have the ambition to build a global market leader in the earth observation industry:

- We are convinced that within the next 10 years insights from space will have a positive impact in areas from construction, mining, insurance, forestry, agriculture, to finance. Our ultimate goal with LiveEO is to bring earth observation to all enterprise customers across the globe, say Seidel and Przywarra.

For more information, please contact:

Sven Przywarra, LiveEO, sven@live-eo.com, +491788552758

Christian Reitberger, btov Industrial Technologies, christian.reitberger@btov.vc

Terhi Vapola, Helen Ventures, terhi@helenventures.fi, +358 40 803 6407