UP42

UP42 combines multiple sources of satellite imagery, geospatial data, and analytics on a single scalable platform. To help organizations of all sizes harness the power of geospatial insights, UP42 partners with leading providers to bring data and algorithms to its marketplace.

Customers use UP42 to build flexible solutions for infrastructure monitoring, maritime surveillance, crop monitoring, and other uses. And developers and data scientists across all industries have a platform to build, run, and scale projects in one place.

The Opportunity

BCG Digital Ventures recognized that, in order to boost geospatial development and commercialization, Airbus’s proposed venture would need to anticipate future trends.

UP42 was structured to provide self-service API access instead of direct customer relations. Rather than selling pixels, it would sell insights. The idea was to bypass offline operations to exploit the cloud and forgo closed ecosystems in favor of an open marketplace.

UP42 was conceived as an open developer platform to build, run, and scale geospatial products. It brings together high-resolution satellite imagery, drone imagery, IoT data, and the algorithms to work with all that data, and it serves as a marketplace for geospatial data and processing algorithms.

Developers and data scientists—from small start-ups to the analytics departments of big corporations across industries—can use the platform to gain valuable geospatial insights that lead to more revenue and profits.