A few days ago we heard that Google is selling — the satellite startup it bought for $500 million in 2014 to Planet, Terra Bella’s key competitor.
The deal is a pivotal moment for the earth-observation market — a market that provides all types of industries with strategic intelligence based on satellite data, with many customers in the defense and intelligence space. (Other applications include providing big box stores with data on parking lot fill rates by time or day or giving agriculturalists data on crops and land.)
Yes , Terra Bella (formerly Skybox), one of the biggest SpaceTech “success stories” and the only space-related VC-backed exit of its kind to date, is now being sold.
Under the terms of the deal, Planet will acquire the Terra Bella business, including its SkySat constellation of satellites, and Google will enter into a multi-year contract to purchase Earth-imaging data from Planet. A significant number of Terra Bella’s employees are expected to join Planet. And while the financial terms haven’t been disclosed, it is rumored the deal is about $200-300 million (in other words, quite a bit less than what Google paid for it) and that Google is likely buying a stake in Planet.
Here are the implications on the wider earth-observation (EO) market:
1. Investor enthusiasm for EO will significantly decline. There were already concerns in the community that the EO satellite space is overdone, and this deal will convince…