that really didn’t take off, because if a chunk of land is not healthy, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the rest of the farm is unhealthy.” Using drones to survey everything proved too costly to execute, while satellites can’t provide decent enough resolution for the right cost to those would-be customers.
Military use is one area that seems like an obvious use case, but Near Space has yet to pursue that opportunity. Matevosyan describes the Swift as “dual use,” and it could include a limited amount of payload. But she said the company has yet to pursue anything outside of commercial use cases.
Given the direction the world is moving and the geopolitical climate, it will be interesting to see if that remains the case for a technology that seems supremely versatile and relatively cheap.
Still, that versatility is one reason why investors are so interested.
“The idea of low-cost aerial imagery is valuable for many parties, not just insurance,” said Will Borthwick, the principal at Bold who led on this investment. “Even when you think about the advent of AI, which requires timely and high-quality data to work properly, it’s the moment in time for something like this.”
