The NGA Accelerator Powered by Capital Innovators recently selected eight companies from more than 225 applicants to participate in the third cohort of its geospatial accelerator program. The St. Louis-based accelerator will launch on May 9, 2022, and is enabled through a Partnership Intermediary Agreement between the Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
The 13-week accelerator is operated by Capital Innovators who recruits startups developing technology that can help address geospatial challenges that focus on government and industry opportunities in alignment with the NGA’s technology focus areas, including data management and artificial intelligence.
Companies selected to participate in the program will have access to incentives including a $100,000 non-dilutive grant, office accommodations in St. Louis during the term of the program, mentoring and coaching from subject matter experts from the NGA and Capital Innovators, investor connections, and participation in a demonstration day. NGA’s Moonshot Labs will host the accelerator cohort for in-person collaboration and events.
“NGA remains committed to leveraging commercial technologies by engaging companies with innovative solutions that can help us meet our mission. Thanks to our partnership with MTC, Capital Innovators has created an accelerator that allows us to expose these companies to geospatial problem sets while also connecting them to a host of opportunities the agency has for potential industry engagement and collaboration.”The accelerator collaboration, the first of its kind sponsored by a U.S. intelligence agency, aims to engage the geospatial ecosystem in the greater St. Louis region and beyond to develop innovations in geospatial technology through collaboration, transfer of technology, and subject matter expertise” said Nicole Washington, Senior Associate for Entrepreneurship & Chief Transformation Officer for NGA Research.
“After two successful cohorts, we look forward to launching a third cohort that will introduce eight additional companies to St. Louis’ rapidly growing geospatial sector,” said Jack Scatizzi, Executive Director of MTC.
The eight startups selected for the third cohort are:
● Chooch Intelligence Technologies (San Mateo, CA): Chooch is an artificial intelligence image and video analytics platform that provides accurate and complete computer vision. Chooch is modeled on the human process of understanding the visual world in context, with deep neural networks that replicate subject matter expertise to accelerate and scale geospatial intelligence processing and analysis.
● Notoros, Inc. (St. Louis, MO): Notoros, Inc. has developed the most versatile Layer-1 Blockchain ever built. Through its universal data standard, Notoros enables applications of all types to interoperate across a global decentralized database. Now, developers of all kinds can build blockchain applications and bring about mainstream adoption of distributed ledger technologies.
● Pandata Tech (Houston, TX): Pandata Tech helps federal agencies, cities, and energy companies that manage millions of time series data points from IoT sensors, reduce the time and cost its takes to clean, validate, and label data by 60%. When deployed throughout the data pipeline our AI and physics can help mitigate decision systems’ intrinsic cyber risk.
● SCOUT, Inc. (Alexandria, VA): SCOUT is providing space-based sensing, data, and analytics products and services. Its distributed on-orbit sensing capabilities will significantly improve Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and ensure responsible use of the space environment.
● Skyline Nav AI Inc. (Cambridge, MA): Skyline Nav is an alternate to GPS using visual navigation. Their technology helps military and commercial entities position and navigate even when GPS is not available.
● Terradepth Inc. (Austin, TX): Terradepth is an ocean data company driving a step change in undersea situational awareness through the creation of ‘Google Earth’ for the oceans. We have a holistic approach to the problem which includes the development of novel autonomous undersea vehicle (AUV) systems, the operation of these systems as a service, and the development of a cloud-based, immersive ocean geospatial data platform.
● TCarta Marine LLC (Denver, CO): TCarta is an independently owned small business with a mission to survey the seafloor utilizing space-based instruments and a vision for globally-produced Satellite Derived Bathymetry solutions for coastal, littoral and lacustrine hydrographic surveying. Under a Phase 2 SBIR grant from the National Science Foundation, TCarta recently developed a scalable machine learning software solution for multi-sensor integration for large scale bathymetry mapping. Continuing research in remote hydrographic technologies, the company is currently underway in a NOAA-funded Phase 2 SBIR grant focused on coastal bathymetry mapping in challenging and remote locations in Alaska.
● Fraym (Arlington, VA): Fraym’s technology produces rich, localized spatial insight on population attitudes, attributes and behaviors around the world.
“The NGA Accelerator continues to attract high-quality geospatial startups and we could not be happier with the selected eight,” said Frank Hopper, Managing Director of Capital Innovators. “The next 13 weeks are going to help these top-tier companies reach even higher and achieve their goals.”
About the NGA Accelerator:
The NGA Accelerator is a first-of-its-kind program that partners a leading government intelligence agency and a top-ranked accelerator to help advance cutting-edge innovations in the geospatial market. This unique 13-week program will provide startups the opportunity to engage directly with NGA and receive valuable feedback, connections, pilot opportunities, and unparalleled resources to help their businesses scale. The Accelerator is searching for best-in- breed businesses developing novel dual-use technologies (products that have both commercial and military uses), which will grow the number of geospatial solutions available to NGA. https://capitalinnovators.com/nga-accelerator-program
About the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency:
NGA delivers world-class geospatial intelligence that provides a decisive advantage to policymakers, warfighters, intelligence professionals and first responders. NGA is a unique combination of intelligence agency and combat support agency. It is the world leader in timely, relevant, accurate and actionable geospatial intelligence. NGA enables the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense to fulfill the president’s national security priorities to protect the nation. For more information about NGA, visit us online at http://www.nga.mil, Facebook, Twitter, Flipboard, SoundCloud or YouTube.
About the Missouri Technology Corporation:
The Missouri Technology Corporation is a public-private partnership created to promote entrepreneurship and foster the growth of new and emerging high-tech companies. MTC’s vision is to transform Missouri through the power of entrepreneurship by serving as a catalyst for technology-based innovation to achieve sustainable economic growth and its mission is to provide leadership and make strategic investments that help entrepreneurs create and grow technology-based Missouri businesses. http://www.missouritechnology.com
About Capital Innovators:
Capital Innovators provides top-ranked accelerator programs, venture fund management, and corporate innovation. It manages private and corporate venture funds focused on technology, consumer products, and energy innovations. Capital Innovators has helped scale 136 companies and assisted them in raising over $400 MM in follow-on investment and creating over 2,000 jobs. https://capitalinnovators.com/
NGA’s Moonshot Labs:
Moonshot Labs is an innovation tech hub that provides an unclassified environment for exploring and developing solutions that align with NGA’s operational requirements. Moonshot Labs is located in downtown St Louis at the T-REX building.
