EarthDaily Analytics has acquired Descartes Labs and that company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Descartes Labs Government, Inc. — the newly combined company will be led by EDA CEO, Don Osborne.
The integration of Descartes Labs’ established insurance, energy, mining, and U.S. defense and intelligence business segments represents a major expansion of EDA’s Earth Observation (EO) and value-added products into market segments with a diversified existing customer base and significant growth potential. Established DL commercial products, including Marigold, Iris, and Ascend, as well as DLG products Retina and Wayfinder, which are used by the U.S. Government, will be enhanced by the powerful data provided by the EarthDaily Constellation, set to launch in 2025. The Acquisition ensures that both current and future customers will benefit from best-in-class solutions with unprecedented capabilities.
The acquisition also further enhances EDA as a platform for future geospatial acquisition opportunities. The Company is focused on acquisition opportunities in which it can gain immediate access to select high-value verticals, leveraging its core technology and cross-platform synergies to unlock material value in the acquired businesses.
Don Osborne, CEO of EarthDaily Analytics, said, “We are thrilled to welcome the Descartes Labs team into the EarthDaily Analytics family. Having worked closely with DL in recent months, we have been deeply impressed by their unique knowledge and insights in the application of geospatial data to address key challenges facing the public and private sectors. Moreover, drawing on the success of our agriculture business and our proven capabilities in using broad area change detection to identify and address issues on the ground, we see DL as being highly complementary to EDA’s overall business. EDA and DL share a vision for EO in which the value of cutting-edge technology is firmly rooted in its ability to provide material support to decision makers on the ground. Leveraging our core technology, this acquisition instantly positions the combined EDA as a highly relevant player in multiple fast-growing, high-value markets, building on our established position as a global leader in the agriculture and ag insurance markets. Additionally, this significant expansion positions us to offer a comprehensive, end-to-end geospatial and AI service offering that meets the complex and multifaceted needs of even the largest civil government and commercial partners. The full extent of this synergy will become undeniable with the 2025 launch of the EarthDaily Constellation, which will change the game in EO with daily imaging of the world’s landmasses and relevant maritime areas, creating a scientific-quality data source purpose-built for AI applications. Utilizing the combination of Everywhere Everyday EO, multiple high-impact downstream business segments, and our focus on real-world applications and seamless integration with best-in-class data analytics tools, EDA is poised to unlock the full power of big data and AI in geospatial intelligence and applications, driving superior business, regulatory, and policy outcomes.”
Chandra Patel, Managing Partner of Antarctica Capital and Chairman of EarthDaily Analytics, said, “Antarctica Capital has a strong institutional commitment to the geospatial and data analytics sectors. We believe this merger will unlock significant opportunities for growth and innovation, with the newly combined Company positioned to be a vertically integrated industry leader focused on leveraging its data, software, and data analytics as a service platform, driven by AI and machine learning. Antarctica Capital remains committed to supporting EDA through this exciting new chapter.
About EarthDaily Analytics
EarthDaily Analytics (EDA), headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, is a vertically integrated provider of Earth Observation data, analytics, and solutions. Utilizing a unique combination of proven space technologies, ground-breaking AI applications, and cutting-edge big data tools, EDA provides value-added, actionable insights to decision-makers and risk managers across the public and private sectors on a global basis. Building on a 35-year track record of leadership and innovation in the commercial application of Earth Observation technology, EDA is moving the state of the Change Detection industry forward with the 2025 launch of the EarthDaily Constellation. Supported by best-in-class project partners including Loft Orbital, Airbus, ABB, and SpaceX, the EarthDaily Constellation will provide spectrally robust, analytics-ready data covering nearly 100% of the world’s landmasses and key maritime regions, collected at the same time every day. Pairing the unmatched data collection of the EarthDaily Constellation with EarthPipeline, the world’s first fully managed, endlessly scalable ground segment pipeline-as-a-service, EarthDaily Analytics is bringing the world’s most advanced change detection system to bear on the biggest challenges facing businesses, governments, and humanity as a whole.
About Descartes Labs
Descartes Labs, Inc., and its wholly-owned government subsidiary, Descartes Labs Government, Inc., solve the world’s most complex problems through advanced science. We offer customers an accelerated ability to address operational needs by transforming the world’s data into actionable and predictive insights that impact climate change, sustainability, food security, and safeguard natural resources at the speed of relevance. Our solutions offer unique advantages to our customers that are grounded in an ever-expanding portfolio of dual-use commercial products and capabilities which are enabled by our core technology stack. Descartes Labs is an industry innovator, transforming data to decisions around the world.
About Antarctica Capital
Antarctica Capital is an alternative asset management firm headquartered in New York with assets under management of approximately $3.6 billion as of December 31, 2023. Antarctica Capital is a registered investment advisor and is dedicated to investments in private markets and real assets and the establishment of long-term capital vehicles to leverage this investment focus. Antarctica Capital’s investment approach is active ownership with an inherent focus on sustainability and providing more than capital to develop companies. The firm has an absolute return focus, which leads the firm to rigorously evaluate and build conviction around idiosyncratic investment opportunities and build value through the implementation of its investment strategies, such as SIGA®, SARO® and SEREY™.
