Spain’s Xoople secures $130M Series B to map Earth for AI

For years, space data companies have argued that the private sector needs their offerings, but government buyers have driven the real demand. Now, as artificial intelligence becomes a top priority for businesses, a Spanish startup is working to become the go‑to source of ground‑truth data for enterprises.

Xoople (pronounced “zoople”) is building a satellite constellation to collect high‑precision data designed for deep learning models. Founded in 2019, the startup has spent the last seven years developing its technology stack around data from government spacecraft and integrating with cloud providers.

CEO and co‑founder Fabrizio Pirondini told TechCrunch that the company has closed a $130 million Series B led by Nazca Capital. Other investors include MCH Private Equity, CDTI (a tech development fund backed by the Spanish government), Buenavista Equity Partners, and Endeavor Catalyst.

The startup also announced on Monday a deal with U.S. space and defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to begin building sensors for Xoople’s spacecraft. The sensors are designed to collect “a stream of data that is going to be two orders of magnitude better than existing monitoring systems,” Pirondini told TechCrunch.

L3Harris has built some of the most advanced commercial imaging systems in orbit. However, Pirondini declined to share any details about the satellites—not even how many the company plans to build—beyond noting that the sensors will collect optical data. Those systems are not cheap, and the company continues to raise capital to fund full development.

Pirondini declined to share the firm’s valuation after the current fundraising round, except to say that “we are in unicorn territory.” The company has raised $225 million in total.

The company’s focus on data quality is a key differentiator. Still, Xoople is entering a crowded market with several mature competitors, including Vantor, Planet, BlackSky, and Airbus in Europe, which already operate satellites in orbit and are developing AI‑focused datasets.

The twist for Xoople is its focus on enterprise platforms.

“Our business model is all about embedding our data and our solutions directly into the ecosystem of those partners so they can provide those services directly to their customers,” Pirondelli said.

Pirondelli described use cases such as government agencies tracking transportation networks and damage from natural disasters, agribusiness monitoring crop health, or large firms keeping an eye on infrastructure projects or supply chains.

Aravind Ravichandran, CEO of Earth observation sector consultancy TerraWatch Space, told TechCrunch that Xoople’s decision to prepare its distribution strategy before having its own data is intriguing. For now, it relies on publicly available data, such as that collected by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel‑2 spacecraft.

“They laid the distribution pipes before having their own data supply—embedding into Microsoft and Esri, the two platforms where enterprise, government and most GIS buyers already live, but neither has proprietary EO data,” Ravichandran said. “Google’s head start on geospatial AI models is the benchmark they’ll be measured against.”

It’s not clear what balance Xoople will strike between providing raw data and developing its own analysis tools, but Pirondini hopes to build “Earth’s System of Record,” a project he expects will ultimately include the development of a true AI world model alongside partners.