In-orbit inspection company HEO Robotics has raised a seed financing round to launch its HEO Inspect product and help scale its services.
HEO Robotics visually monitors satellites and space debris to help satellite operators to monitor their space assets, as well as governments with space situational awareness. The company does this using Earth observation satellites already in orbit, by transforming them with software into inspection cameras. HEO Robotics has access to 25 of these satellites in various orbits
today.
This is the company’s seed round and is the first major investment in HEO Robotics. The company says the seed financing will allow it to scale its services to help monitor the 40x increase in satellite numbers to be launched over the next 10 years.
The funds will be used to release HEO’s inspection product for satellites, HEO Inspect, which is currently live being used by customers in a private beta.
“In-orbit inspection is an incredibly important part of keeping space sustainable," William Crowe, CEO and Co-founder of HEO Robotics, said. "One of the easiest ways to reduce debris is to monitor existing spacecraft and either troubleshoot known issues or help predict future failures.
"As a company that believes in space sustainability, we utilise cameras that are already in space, rather than adding to the congestion.”
“I am pleased to have had the opportunity to back Founders Will and Hiranya and HEO Robotics, which looks to have considerable potential in the burgeoning commercial space industry,” David Harding, CEO of Winton Group who led the funding round, said.
