Space tech KappaZeta raised €480K
Tartu-based space tech KappaZeta raised €480K from a co-founder of Estonian provider of autonomous delivery services Starship Technologies and a co-founder of Ambient Sound Investments Ahti Heinla, a manager of Baltic company HD Forest (forest management and management of forest investments for private as well as for institutional investors) Toomas Kams, an owner and founder of EST Kinnisvara (operates in the areas of property investment management and brokering, with a focus on commercial real estate and agricultural land) Eva Kams, a director of NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence Mart Noorma, a director of Estonian Research Council (ETAg) Anu Noorma, a CEO and a founder of medical equipment manufacturer Better Medicine Priit Salumaa, a co-founder of Estonian website building platform Voog and Estonian logistics platform Sixfold Tõnu Runnel, Estonian Business School Group, and others.
Founded in 2015 by Kaupo Voormansik, KappaZeta offers services for analyzing radar satellite data. It focuses specifically on the agriculture sector so farmers can make better decisions, earn more profit, and grow better food. In addition, the startup's technology helps with continuous time series of biomass estimation. The team receives biomass estimate images from SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) observations combined with cloud-free optical images. KappaZeta's technology also helps to detect various plant types and identify crop types by their temporal signature via phenology (cyclic and seasonal natural phenomena). In 2018, KappaZeta developed an automated mowing detection system for Estonia.
KappaZeta’s solution can be used in agriculture, insurance, forestry, defense, open-area mining, and environmental protection.
The startup will use the investment to develop its agricultural and defense products and create a service for forest carbon stock assessment. Also, it will work on making Sentinel-1 (constellation of two satellites) data three-dimensional to create a global and frequently updated data set about forest biomass and carbon stock.
