{"id":366387,"date":"2026-04-06T14:48:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/366387\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T14:48:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T14:48:15","slug":"spains-xoople-raises-130-million-series-b-to-map-the-earth-for-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/366387\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain’s Xoople raises $130 million Series B to map the Earth for AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Space data companies have argued for years that the private sector needs their products, but the real uptake has been from government buyers. Now, with artificial intelligence top of mind for business, one Spanish startup is trying to become the go-to source of ground truth for enterprise.<\/p>\n

Xoople<\/a> (said like \u201czoople\u2019) is developing a satellite constellation to collect precise data aimed at deep learning models. The startup was founded in 2019 and has spent the last seven years developing its tech stack around data collected by government spacecraft, and integrating with cloud providers.<\/p>\n

CEO and cofounder Fabrizio Pirondini told TechCrunch that the company has closed a $130 million Series B led by Nazca Capital. Other investors include MCH Private Equity, CDTI, a tech development fund backed by the Spanish government, Buenavista Equity Partners, and Endeavor Catalyst.<\/p>\n

The startup also announced Monday a deal with U.S. space and defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to begin building sensors for Xoople\u2019s spacecraft, which are designed to collect \u201ca stream of data that is going to be two orders of magnitude better than existing monitoring systems,\u201d Pirondini told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n

L3Harris has built some of the most advanced commercial imaging systems on orbit. However, Pirondini wouldn\u2019t share any details about the satellites, not even how many the company wants to build, except that the sensors will collect optical data. Those systems aren\u2019t cheap, and the company continues to raise capital to fund its full development.<\/p>\n

Pirondi declined to share his firm\u2019s valuation after the current fundraising round, except to note that \u201cwe are in unicorn territory.\u201d The company has raised $225 million in total.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s focus on data quality is a key differentiator. Still, Xoople is entering a crowded space with several mature competitors, including Vantor, Planet, BlackSky, and Airbus in Europe, that are already operating satellites on orbit and developing AI-focused datasets.<\/p>\n

Techcrunch event<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The twist for Xoople is its focus on enterprise platforms. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur business model is all about embedding our data and our solutions directly to the ecosystem of those so that they can provide those services directly to their customers,\u201d Pirondelli said.<\/p>\n

Pirondelli described use cases, including government agencies tracking transportation networks and damage from natural disasters, agribusiness monitoring crop health, or large firms keeping an eye on infrastructure projects or supply chains.<\/p>\n

Aravind Ravichandran, the CEO of Earth observation sector consultancy\u00a0TerraWatch Space<\/a>, told TechCrunch\u00a0that\u00a0Xoople\u2019s decision to prepare its distribution strategy before it has its own data is intriguing. For now, it relies on publicly available data, like that collected by the European Space Agency\u2019s Sentinel-2 spacecraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey laid the distribution pipes before having their own data supply \u2014 embedding into Microsoft and Esri, the two platforms where enterprise, government and most GIS buyers already live, but neither has proprietary EO data,\u201d Ravichandran said.\u00a0\u201cGoogle\u2019s head start on geospatial AI models is the benchmark they\u2019ll be measured against.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear what balance Xoople will strike between providing raw data and developing its own analysis tools, but Pirondi hopes to build \u201cEarth\u2019s System of Record,\u201d a project he expects will ultimately include the development of a true AI world model alongside partners. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Space data companies have argued for years that the private sector needs their products, but the real uptake…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,1017,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-366387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-exclusive","12":"tag-new-zealand","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}