Author: Olivier Laplace, Partner, Technology

In the past decade, satellite and drone prices have been reduced by factors of 100x to 1000x. 

This price reduction has created an explosion of affordable geospatial images that have since become accessible to be analysed and utilised.   

As a result of this increase in available imagery, a bottleneck has formed. There are no longer enough data scientists and engineers available to analyse and interpret these images. This bottleneck, coupled with obsolete project-based approaches to process such images and extract insights, has proven an exceptional opportunity for Picterra.   

Picterra offers a SaaS platform for earth observation analytics. What sets Picterra apart is that its platform requires no programming or deep learning skills, and enables users to simply train, deploy and customise AI algorithms to extract the necessary geo-information.   

“Picterra wants to democratize machine learning for geospatial analysis”  

Global customers such as SGS, Nespresso and The World Bank use the solution to monitor transport, infrastructure and energy networks.  

In the ESG sector, Picterra helps companies monitor risks associated with climate change but also proves their reporting claims. For example, a large FMCG company can now monitor coffee plantations to make sure its thousands of farms grow coffee in a sustainable way, forming part of a corporate commitment to build sustainable farming communities.  

At VI Partners we believe that to benefit from the full potential of digitization, we need full-stack and easy-to-use solutions which give non tech-savvy businesses users access to machine learning and AI applications.  

Our latest tech investments: Unique, Acodis, Ninox and Picterra are concrete examples of this ambition.