The astronauts aboard Artemis II aren’t the only ones with a bird’s eye view of Earth; more than a thousand observation satellites are circling the planet. Combined with AI, which can process their imagery in minutes, they make up a real-time monitoring layer for Earth systems that can track extreme weather and other phenomena at unprecedented scale and speed. Satellites are also tracking deforestation, methane emissions and other climate indicators.
As asset managers, insurers and carbon markets integrate satellite data, impact investors are taking notice.
“Launch costs are coming down fast. The number of satellites is exploding. The use cases are exploding,” Hans-Christian Lauer of California-based impact investing firm Zenani Capital told ImpactAlpha. “From a climate investor perspective, Earth observation is exactly where we should be.”
Pricing risk
Zenani this week invested in Buenos Aires-based Satellites on Fire, which uses AI and existing satellite data to detect wildfires up to 35 minutes earlier than NASA. Such data can give communities crucial time to prepare and save lives. Insurance giant Aon is using the platform to assess wildfire risk in its Latin American forestry portfolio and develop parametric wildfire insurance products.
Natural disasters caused $368 billion in economic losses worldwide in 2024. Insurers are turning to satellite data to underwrite and price that risk. In December, German insurance company Munich Re embedded flood intelligence from ICEYE into its underwriting platform.
The Finnish satellite company captures images of the same location multiple times daily. New York-based Floodbase raised $5 million last year from Ecosystem Integrity Fund and Pulse Investment Partners. Its satellites detect water levels through cloud cover to produce real-time flood maps that trigger automatic payouts. Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, Liberty Mutual and AXA Climate are partners.
Asset light
Satellites on Fire doesn’t own a single satellite. The company has selected an asset light model, where it builds its own detection system on top of publicly available satellite data from NASA, Google and other research organizations. That approach allows it to focus on software and analytics, avoiding the cost and complexity of launching and maintaining hardware.
California nonprofit Carbon Mapper has also gone asset-lite, using satellite imagery from Planet Labs to detect and map methane and CO2 emissions from industrial sources.
In March, California signed a $95 million contract with Carbon Mapper to use the data for real-time emissions enforcement. “You could easily make a case for investing in a startup that just shoots up a better purpose-built satellite,” Lauer said. “That’s just not where I think the world is going.”
