Pixxel Founder On Synergies With Google And Raising Money Amid Funding Winter — BQ Exclusive

"We're essentially a space data company," Awais Ahmed told BQ Prime, a day after the company announced a $36-million Series B funding round, which saw Google come onboard as an investor. "We sell and analyse data and that data happens to come from satellites in space around the Earth."

The Bengaluru-based startup is also in the middle of building the world's first and highest-resolution hyperspectral satellite constellation to help gain climate insights, which will be supported by the recent fundraise.

"This wasn't an investment from Google Ventures or Google Capital, it was from Google and they do not invest unless there's a strategic angle," the Pixxel founder said.

Ahmed said the first place where Pixxel and Google could explore synergies is the latter's AI research team. "That team does a whole lot of research and analysis of different kinds of data in agriculture, forestry and sustainability and so on," he said. "Our dataset will actually help unlock new use cases."

Secondly, Google Earth is another platform that would benefit from Pixxel's data. "We've all played with it, looking at satellite imagery on it," Ahmed said. "But we should be able to go one step beyond just visible imagery and add capability to Google Earth."

Thirdly, Google Earth Engine is another pathway. That is something that a lot of data scientists and geospatial developers today use to analyse existing satellite data, wherein hyperspectral data could come in and help unlock newer use cases too, according to Ahmed. "There's a financial aspect to it, but not purely financial."

He said the company is not profitable today, but charted a path that would lead it to be self-sustaining. "The $36-million fully funds for the first phase of our constellation and with that going up, it should take not more than three months after they've launched for us to start generating revenue from these satellites."

Ahmed said they have over 50 customers signed on, waiting for the data. "We are aiming for the next 2.5–3 years from today and 1.5–2 years from the launch of the satellites to reach a point where we are self-sustaining."

Pixxel's Series B completion has come at a time when access to capital is limited and companies that are leaner, have free cash flow or are profitable are the ones getting priority for funding.

Ahmed said it was definitely a difficult time to fundraise. "It took a lot longer than it generally has taken us before."

"It took a lot more conversations for us to actually get there," he said. "The contracts we have and the customer traction gave enough confidence to Google and other new investors to come in."

Ahmed said the government had been very supportive of the private space industry through its policies. However, he expects them to end up becoming buyers and partners of their products and services, rather than just supporting from a policy standpoint because the ecosystem needs to create a market. "The U.S. and China have done that really well."

He highlighted that India also needs to step up, saying that the government has to be the first buyer because it's a risky proposition. Some of them will not work out, but most of them will.

"We'll continue to build from India for the world because that's where the market is today," he said. "But, in parallel, we will try and make sure that the market also evolves in India and becomes a vibrant ecosystem in a few years."