SAN FRANCISCO – Los Angeles startup Matter Intelligence has emerged from stealth with $12 million to develop its own Earth observation sensor suite. The suite combines high-resolution cameras, thermal sensors, and spectrometers and is designed for satellites, drones, and aircraft.
“Everyone wants to do data fusion, so we’re bringing all three together,” Matter co-founder and CEO Vishnu Sridhar told SpaceNews. “We’re doing data fusion at the sensor level.”
By combining the data, Matter intends to feed an AI model to create a map that “can identify all the materials on the Earth’s surface and in the atmosphere,” Sridhar said. The matter map will show, for example, whether a roof is made of aluminum or tile, identify invasive vegetation and reveal “the emissions that are coming out of every pipeline,” Sridhar said. spoke.
Matter will also provide digital elevation models using data captured by the sensor suite.
Lowercarbon Capital led Matter’s seed round. Toyota Ventures, Pear VC, Mark Cuban, and E2MC participated.
building a brand
With funding from the seed round, Matter aims to build and demonstrate its sensor suite, scale the company and brand, and increase customer engagement. “We are already working with some commercial customers on more advanced use cases,” Sridhar said.
Matter hasn’t revealed the sensor’s resolution yet, but says it offers submeter accuracy. The startup is also not ready to say when it plans to launch its first satellite, Earth-1.
Sridhar, a former instrument engineer for the Mars Perseverance Rover’s SuperCam, co-founded Matter Intelligence in early 2023 with former Millennium Space Engineer Thomas Chrien and former Caltech scientist Nathan Stein.
“Matter is building the most sophisticated hyperspectral sensors to date to study the Earth, allowing us to uncover critical invisible resources and measure the costs of climate change in real time. ,” Lowercarbon Capital partner Shawn Xu said in a statement.
