When Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast in late August, one Austin startup literally rose to the occasion.
Using satellite and aerial drone data, Slingshot Aerospace responded to requests from Planet, BAE Systems and Team Rubicon to identify safe flood evacuation routes, standing flood waters and staging areas as water levels swelled.
"My hometown is Houston, and I cannot be prouder of my team for quickly responding and supporting the communities there," said CEO David Godwin.
Today, the one-year-old startup gained investor support to the tune of $3.25 million from a group of investors that included ATX Seed Ventures.
Okapi Venture Capital, Sway Ventures, Stage and NoName Ventures also participated in the round, which Slingshot will use to further analyze satellite, aircraft and drone geospatial imaging.
"This round will enable Slingshot to press our advantage to be the first place defense and commercial senior decision makers look for assessing risk, monitoring change or evaluating opportunity around assets worldwide,” said Godwin in a statement.
Slingshot’s data platform leverages signal-processing AI and computer vision algorithms to explore, automate and predict object classification, event discovery, change detection and risk scoring for clients like insurance and energy companies and military agencies.
“The amount of data gathered by satellites, aircraft and drones is accelerating exponentially. Turning that into profound, useful insights via artificial intelligence is one of the largest market opportunities of the decade," said Christopher Shonk, founder of ATX Seed Ventures, in a statement. "We are thrilled to work with this experienced management team and, having spoken to current and potential customers, we maintain a strong outlook for Slingshot Aerospace to lead the market."
Headquartered in Austin, the startup graduated from Techstars inaugural LA class in 2017 and holds a large presence in California.
