Spire Inspires

Today, San Francisco-based Spire announced a $40M Series B round that Promus Ventures was privileged to lead. Bessemer Venture Partners and Jump Capital participated in the round as new investors, alongside numerous existing investors including RRE Ventures and Lemnos Labs that also participated. The Company has now raised more than $80M of capital.

We were introduced to Spire from our friends at Lemnos when the Spire team was raising their $25M Series A round. Right out of the gate, we were blown away with Peter Platzer, the Founder and CEO of Spire. Peter has a MS in Physics, a MS in Space Science and Management, as well as an MBA from Harvard. His career has included time at CERN and BCG, as well as time leading quantitative research at The Rohatyn Group, and then as Quantitative Portfolio Manager at Deutsche Bank. In late 2012, with a vision toward the shifting satellite data market and a long-time passion for space, Peter cofounded Spire (then Nanosatisfi).

Peter’s deep expertise in data analytics was the cornerstone for launching (pun intended) his nanosatellite startup, with the audacious goal of powering the entire earth with a full-stack weather data platform. His endless energy, spunk and humor filled every call and meeting. It was soon clear to us that he was a unique leader equipped to tackle the difficult problem of collecting global remote sensing data with quick refresh rates needed for weather, maritime, and supply chain management solutions, among others.

Since our Series A investment, Peter and team have built a vast global infrastructure for consistent, fault tolerant space to ground data transfer. The team seems to be in a different country each week, closing yet another data subscription contract with a new large corporation or government. In addition to its SF headquarters, the team has moved quickly to open offices in Singapore and Glasgow, giving them a unique global talent pool in which to find and hire the best space engineers in the world.

Spire will deploy its cubesats on a near monthly basis starting in September 2015. Space is hard, and stuff happens, but within short order we expect Spire’s platform to dramatically change how large corporations and organizations see the world. As governments increasingly look to the private sector to solve all things space, Spire fills this gap to provide a high-fidelity data platform that will significantly change our lives for the better.

This current funding round will support even faster growth and expansion, and we’re excited to be joining the board to help in this pursuit. Only one corny space pun has been written during this entire post, but it’s hard not to state that with Spire, the sky is no longer the limit.