Orbital Sidekick (OSK) has received a $10 million investment round from strategic investors to commercialize the company’s asset monitoring solution, which enables the energy sector to further enhance monitoring and mitigating pipeline emissions — the funding will also support the deployment of OSK’s GHOSt Constellation, a fleet of satellites equipped with best-in-class hyperspectral sensors launching later this year.
The round was led by existing investor Energy Innovation Capital and included strategic investments from Williams and ONEOK, two of the largest energy companies in North America and existing customers of OSK, along with University of Minnesota’s Endowment and existing investors 11.2 Capital, Syndicate 708 and In-Q-Tel, the non-profit strategic investor serving the U.S. intelligence and national security community and its allies.
Founded in 2016, OSK has rapidly developed and deployed its space-based intelligence technology to collect, process and analyze advanced hyperspectral data. By equipping satellites with sensors that capture images in over 500 narrow contiguous color bands across the electromagnetic spectrum, OSK can observe critical infrastructure — like gas and oil pipelines — from space. The company’s flagship product SIGMA, or Spectral Intelligence Global Monitoring Application, leverages this advanced hyperspectral data and its proprietary analytics engine to detect leaks, contaminations and other intrusive events that jeopardize global energy systems. Companies can subsequently use these insights to minimize emissions, exceed regulatory requirements and reduce their carbon footprints.
OSK’s technologies have already monitored more than 12,000 miles of pipelines to date, flagging nearly 100 suspected methane leaks, 200 suspected liquid hydrocarbon leaks and more than 300 intrusive events related to construction activities.
While OSK is focusing on the energy sector, the applications of its technology extend to a variety of commercial and governmental sectors, with use cases ranging from rare earth material exploration and wildfire resilience to disaster relief and global defense support. OSK has already secured contracts to supply hyperspectral data to the United States Department of Defense through its partnerships with In-Q-Tel, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force.
“This investment by our customers and partners in the energy sector sends a resounding signal to the monitoring and intelligence services marketplace that OSK is leading the space with a best-in-class, scalable solution for supporting sustainable operations,” said Dan Katz, CEO and co-founder of OSK. “By bringing on new strategic investors in Williams and ONEOK, we are further strengthening our commitment to providing improved asset monitoring services for energy infrastructure while expanding product offerings that support environmental sustainability and a low carbon future.”
“The future of energy requires sustainable and reliable distributed energy infrastructure. OSK’s sophisticated satellite based detection and monitoring solution provides unique data and information that can be utilized by industry to quantify sustainability performance, differentiating the top performers,” said Christopher Smith, Managing Director, Energy Innovation Capital. “We continue to be impressed with the tremendous technical and commercial progress the OSK team has made over the last year and are equally excited about Williams’ and OneOk’s commitment as commercialization partners. We are eagerly awaiting the launch and commissioning of GHOSt 1 and 2.“
“The success of our efforts to transition to a more sustainable global energy system is predicated on our ability to efficiently detect problems before they become environmental crises,” said Tushar Prabhakar, COO and co-founder of OSK. “OSK is proud to be working alongside investors and customers that share a similar commitment to realizing this sustainable future, and we’re excited to build on the success of our technology in 2023, starting with the launch of our GHOSt constellation and our first commercial solution.”
“Williams is excited to add Orbital Sidekick to our portfolio of Next Gen Gas solutions, further enabling us to provide industry leading low carbon solutions for our customers,” said Chad Zamarin, Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategic Development for Williams. “Through this partnership, we will enhance our real-time methane detection and measurement capabilities to ensure we are providing the cleanest pathways across our energy infrastructure network to meet growing clean energy needs at home and abroad.”
“ONEOK remains focused on exploring and investing in innovative technologies that can benefit our assets, operations, customers, employees and the communities in which we operate,” said Greg Lusardi, ONEOK Senior Vice President, Corporate Development. “We believe the scalability and applicational benefits of Orbital Sidekick’s flexible platform will create additional value for our business and the industry.”
