From GeekWire:
Satellites, sensors, social media and purchasing data provide terabytes’ worth of information about how the global economy is working — and the insights gleaned from that data can be more precious than gold.
But what’s the best way to extract the gold from the dross? That’s where longtime space entrepreneur Dick Rocket intends to step in with a stealthy venture called Orrery.ai.
“There’s a gap between the data analysis firms and the financial sector,” Rocket told GeekWire this week. “That is our gap.”
Rocket launched Orrery.ai about a year ago, with backing from angel investors, but he and a small executive team are just now ramping up a more ambitious private funding campaign. They’re also mulling over where to put their headquarters. (The Seattle area is in the mix, along with sites in Florida, Texas, New York and Georgia.)
One of the key tasks ahead will be to fine-tune a set of machine-learning algorithms that can process publicly available data as well as proprietary data sets and satellite imagery to produce business insights.
“There are literally millions of data sources that are available to us,” said Jason Evans, a tech startup veteran who serves as Orrery.ai’s chief technical officer.
Space companies such as Spire Global and Seattle-based BlackSky already offer satellite data that can be used to figure out whose ship traffic is increasing, whose crops are doing well, or which retail chain’s parking lots are full. But they leave it up to their customers — including financial analysts and hedge fund managers — to decide what to do with that information.
In contrast, Orrery.ai would reserve the insights for its own use, although there may be some data-sharing deals on the side. “We don’t want anyone knowing what we know,” Rocket said.
Everything that Orrery.ai comes to know would be applied to strategic investments made through a separate but allied venture called the 2020 Fund. Rocket is already thinking big about how the 2020 Fund would leverage Orrery.ai’s proprietary data analysis to make money for its investors....MORE
