Dual-Use Tech Roundup - Space, Imaging, and Cyber

8 November 2021 - featuring - Dragos, Cyabra, Satellite Xu, Clarifai, Cord, Voyager Space Holdings, and Xona...

Funding Announcements

Dragos 🛡️

Cyber security startup Dragos completed their Series D funding round this past week on Thursday, October 28th. The company raised $200 million in a round led by Koch Disruptive Technologies and Black Rock. After this latest round of funding the company is valued at $1.7 billion. The founders were not planning to raise a series D, however the raise was encouraged by investors. The company is hoping this funding will set them up to go public in the next year and a half.

Cyabra ⚔️ 

Fake news and disinformation can be extremely damaging to brand identity. Cyabra has developed a platform to detect social media attacks and then deconstruct them to gain valuable insights. The company closed a $5.6M Series A round that was led by OurCrowd along with Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, on October 26th, 2021. The capital raised will be put towards bolstering their research & development team as well as adding a sales and marketing team in hopes to expand their footprint in the US and Asian markets.

Satellite Vu 🛰 

Information on carbon footprints and global emissions have become increasingly crucial to shaping our future. Satellite Vu develops satellites that can read the temperature of buildings as well as gas and oil infrastructure in order to monitor their emissions and carbon footprints in real time. The company raised £15M ($20.25) in their Series A round that was led by Seraphim Capital on October 20th, 2021. Other notable investors in the round were: Stellar Solutions, Draper Esprit, and the Earth Science Foundation.

Clarifai 📷

Clarifai’s artificial-intelligence based image recognition platform that helps companies to find similar images. Their platform includes image based recommendations utilizing machine learning. The company raised $60M through a Series C round of funding which was a mixture of debt and venture funding. The lead investor for the round was New Enterprise Associates and the round closed on October 15th, 2021 with a post money valuation of $775.25M.

Cord 🔌

Cord has created an algorithmic data labeling platform that allows collaboration across teams. The platform automates manual annotation for computer vision. The company raised a $12.5M Series A, Series A-1, and Series A-2 funding on October 13th, 2021. The rounds were led by CRV with other notable investors such as Crane Partners, Harpoon Ventures, and Y Combinator.

Voyager Space Holdings 🚀

Voyager Space Holding is a holding company that specializes in acquiring companies focused on space exploration. The holding company is privately held and was founded in 2019. They have acquired five companies since their inception: Altius Machines, Pioneer Astronautics, The Launch Company, Nano Racks, and Valley Tech Systems. Their latest acquisition, Valley Tech Systems, aims to solve pressing technology challenges for space and defense companies. The company was acquired by Voyager Tech Holdings on October 4th, 2021.

Xona Space Systems 🚀

Developer of space systems designed for smart infrastructure and transportation, Xona closed their Seed Round of funding in late September. On September 22nd, 2021 the company raised $8.00M in Seed1 and Seed2 funding. The rounds were led by MaC Venture and Seraphim Capital. Other participants include Toyota Ventures, 1517 Fund, and Stellar Solutions. The company hopes to complete their first orbital mission with the funds from this round.