OroraTech is an infrared thermal data intelligence company from Munich / Germany with employees stationed in space. On Wednesday, the company announced that it had raised €15M for a Series A extension round led by Belgium-based Edaphon, which is a climate change impact fund. Also invested in the round were Findus Venture, Ananda Impact Ventures, BayernKapiron, ConActivity, APEX Ventures, SpaceTec Capital and industry experts Ingo Baumann and Clemens Kaiser. The company also received support from the ESA and the Bavarian State Government through non-dilutable co-funding.
Capital Utilisation
OroraTech claims it will use the funds to launch a second camera system that provides thermal infrared data in orbit in May 2023. This is the only commercial supplier of this type of space-based information.
Thomas Grobler, CEO of OroraTech, is pleased to announce a new investor. Edaphon joined OroraTech’s team after raising funding for the company. Thomas believes this new source of capital will help them launch a second camera and expand their overall business strategy. Additionally, he believes this funding will help them develop thermal-IR cameras and reveal insights about transparency in decisions. These ideas align with the company’s overall mission of providing insights about the earth’s temperature every 30 minutes.
About OroraTech
In 2018, Björn Stoffers, Rupert Amann and Florian Mauracher established OroraTech, a thermal-infrared data intelligence company that provides actionable information for sustainable businesses.
OroraTech started with 100 thermal infrared cameras focused on the earth’s temperature. They provide data-based information about temperature trends thanks to the first thermal infrared camera on a nanosatellite. Outside customers include businesses, governments and even those on all six continents. They use OroraTech’s Wildfire Intelligence Solution.
Commercial thermal-infrared cameras record data in two infrared bands: long-wave infrared, or LWIR, and medium-wave infrared, or MWIR. These cameras use thermal-infrared imagery to record the temperature of the surrounding area; they can range from -30 to 80 degrees Celsius. OroraTech often measures the infrared spectrum to determine the temperature of an object. For example, measuring objects in the middle-wavelength infrared spectrum reveals things like fire or super-hot objects.
OroraTech’s camera doesn’t require any additional cooling because it’s the first of its kind. This design makes the camera less expensive to operate and outperforms other air- and ground-based IoT sensors. The camera also has inter-satellite communication, AI-powered onboard processing, and 30-minute updates that are available globally via its 100 cameras in orbit.
OroraTech combines expertise from 20 different nationalities. Its team includes software developers, designers, sales and marketing professionals and other professionals from different backgrounds. The team is headquartered in Munich, Germany; since 2022, it has expanded to include experts from Canada, Luxembourg and the United States. These professionals come together because of their past work experiences in aerospace engineering, satellite data analysis, optics engineering and other related fields.
Solutions From Space
The goal of keeping the increase in global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius has been an aspect of most climate change policy since the Paris Agreement in 2015. This was clearly seen at a conference held in Egypt in the same year. As a consequence of this fever, natural disasters and financial losses have ensued as our planet tries to fight off its illness.
OroraTech claims that wildfires account for between 17 and 20% of the annual global carbon emissions. They also cause €10 billion in insured losses. Statements from the company state that these fires reduce the chances of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for biodiversity, water, health, land life, and climate.
Many important space-based technologies reduce greenhouse gas emissions thanks to Earth observation (EO) technologies. This is because EO data helps improve the quality of air, forest health and carbon credits for forest owners. These same technologies also assist in the detection of EO sensors and ground-based equipment.
OroraTech, a tech company founded in 2022, released the first uncooled thermal-infrared camera in early 2022. The vision of the company is to have a “sustainable Earth with thermal intelligence,” and this led to the creation of their 100 cameras that are planned to be installed by 2026. The camera has been useful for customers all over the world because it provides practical information about thermal infrared light.
The company’s current product on the market is the Wildfire Intelligence Solution, which uses publicly available third-party data related to wildfire detection and monitoring. The system is used by clients all over the world to protect more than 160 million hectares of forest across six continents. Additionally, the company’s work with data analytics firms, business solution providers and institutions has led to an increased demand for thermal-infrared data insights.
