Systems Integrator/Project Lead

Spain's Xoople raises $130 million in Series B to create global maps for AI. By April 6, 2026 No Comments 3 Mins Read Space data companies have long argued that the private sector needs their products, but the real buyers are government buyers. As artificial intelligence becomes a top priority in business today, a Spanish startup is becoming the go-to source of ground truth for businesses. Xoople (referred to as "Zoople") develops a constellation of satellites to collect precise data for deep learning models. The startup was founded in 2019 and has spent the past seven years developing a technology stack around data collected by government spacecraft and integrating with cloud providers. CEO and co-founder Fabrizio Pirondini told TechCrunch that the company has completed a $130 million Series B led by Nazca Capital. Other investors include MCH Private Equity, CDTI (Spanish government-backed technology development fund), Buenavista Equity Partners, and Endeavor Catalyst. The company announced Monday a deal with U.S. space and defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to begin building sensors for the Xoople spacecraft. The sensors are designed to collect "two orders of magnitude better data flow than existing monitoring systems," Pirondini told TechCrunch. L3Harris has built some of the most advanced commercial imaging systems in orbit. But Pirondini did not provide any details about the satellites, other than that the sensors would collect optical data, or even how many the company wanted to build. These systems don't come cheap, and the company continues to raise funds to fund full development. Pirondini declined to share his company's valuation after the latest funding round, other than to say, "We're in unicorn territory." The company has raised a total of $225 million. The company's focus on data quality is a key differentiator. Still, Xoople is entering a competitive field crowded with several mature competitors that already operate satellites in orbit and develop AI-focused datasets, including Vantor, Planet, BlackSky, and Europe's Airbus. tech crunch event San Francisco, California | October 13-15, 2026 What sets Xoople apart is its focus on enterprise platforms. "Our business model is to embed our data and solutions directly into those ecosystems so that we can provide those services directly to our customers," Pirondini said. Pirondini described use cases such as government agencies tracking transportation networks and damage from natural disasters, agribusinesses monitoring the health of crops, and large corporations monitoring infrastructure projects and supply chains. Aravind Ravichandran, CEO of Earth observation consultancy TerraWatch Space, told TechCrunch that Xople's decision to prepare a distribution strategy before acquiring its own data is interesting. For now, it relies on publicly available data, such as data collected by the European Space Agency's Sentinel 2 spacecraft. "They laid distribution pipes before creating their own data feed and built it into Microsoft and Esri, two platforms that enterprises, governments and most GIS buyers already use, but neither of them had their own EO data," Ravichandran said. "Google's lead in geospatial AI models is the benchmark against which those models will be measured." It's unclear how Xoople will strike a balance between providing raw data and developing its own analytical tools, but Pirondini says he wants to create a "system of record for the planet" and expects the project will eventually include working with partners to develop a true AI world model.

Building a shared coordinate system for GPS-denied operations across air and ground. At the recent DGI 2026 conference in London, experts from Niantic Spatial and Vantor came together to discuss one of the most urgent challenges facing modern operations: what happens when GPS becomes a vulnerability? It's a real challenge. Responding to a live poll, 59% of the audience said that jamming and challenging topography caused signal loss in their operations. From electronic warfare to urban environments, GPS disruption is increasingly common. When satellite signals are jammed, spoofed, or blocked, autonomous systems can lose the ability to navigate. Ground teams lose orientation. And the shared situational awareness that complex operations depend on breaks down. To address this vulnerability, Niantic Spatial and Vantor are integrating technologies to build a mission-ready joint capability: a shared coordinate system for GPS-denied operations powered by visual positioning, enabled by advanced georegistration, and anchored to a global 3D spatial foundation built to support resilient autonomy. This video shows how Niantic Spatial's VPS and Vantor's Raptor capabilities work together to create a unified positioning system from air to ground independent of GPS. During the panel, Charlie Houseago, Research Productization Lead for Spatial AI at Niantic Spatial, moderated a conversation with Tory Smith, Director of Product Management at Niantic Spatial, and Josh Sisskind, Principal Product Manager at Vantor, about how this integrated system works and what it could unlock in the coming years. Below is an edited Q&A from that discussion. Q: why is GPS dependency becoming such a critical problem? Josh: GPS denial can happen in many ways. It could be deliberate jamming or spoofing, but it can also occur for more mundane reasons like signal obstruction. Urban environments, dense infrastructure, and rugged terrain can all interfere with GPS signals. The important point is that it's no longer useful to ask why GPS might fail. Vantor Holdings, Inc. must assume that at some point it will. So, the question becomes: how do Vantor Holdings, Inc. build systems that continue operating when it does? What happens operationally when positioning breaks down? What is the most resilient set of alternatives based on diverse scenarios? Tory: That's right. Vantor Holdings, Inc. see similar issues even in commercial environments. Inside buildings or in dense cities, GPS signals can bounce off glass and concrete. The result is multi-path error, where your position might drift tens of meters from reality. In a consumer setting that's frustrating. In a mission critical operation context, it's unacceptable. Without a reliable positioning reference, systems lose the ability to coordinate. A drone, a ground vehicle, and a human operator may all be looking at the same environment but operating in completely different coordinate frames. Q: how can visual positioning help solve this problem? Tory: Visual positioning systems, or visual-based positioning systems, work by comparing a live camera feed to a known model of the world. When a device captures imagery, the system identifies visual features - buildings, terrain patterns, structural geometry - and matches those features against a reference dataset. Once the match is established, the system can determine precise position and orientation. Its system can achieve centimeter-level localization under the right conditions, but historically these systems required a prior estimate of location, usually from GPS. This makes it a strong approach for GPS-denied positioning when the prior may not exist. That's where integrating with Vantor's spatial foundation becomes powerful. Q: where does Vantor's technology fit into the solution? Josh: Vantor provides the global spatial reference layer that these visual systems can anchor to. Its global-scale 3D terrain models are built from more than two decades of satellite imagery using multi-view reconstruction techniques. That produces a detailed digital representation of the Earth's surface that can serve as a consistent spatial foundation accurate down to 3 m in all dimensions. When a drone captures full motion video and imagery from the air, Raptor, its visual positioning and georegistration software suite, can align those images against that terrain data to determine its position, even when GPS isn't available, supporting autonomous navigation in contested environments. By combining that aerial localization capability with Niantic Spatial's ground-based Visual Positioning System (VPS), Vantor Holdings, Inc. create something new: a shared coordinate system that connects the air and the ground. Q: what does "unified air-to-ground positioning" mean? Tory: It means that every system operating in the environment - whether it's a drone, a robot, a soldier-borne device, or an AR headset - can determine its location relative to the same spatial reference. On the ground, its VPS aligns camera imagery against detailed spatial models. In the air, Vantor's system aligns drone imagery against global 3D terrain data. Once both systems reference the same underlying model, air and ground assets can operate in a shared coordinate frame, enabling real-time coordination even without GPS. The goal is not to swap out GPS or established backup solutions, but to augment them with a resilient visual positioning layer for resilient autonomy that keeps systems aligned when GPS performance breaks down. Q: how accurate is the integrated system today? Tory: GPS typically provides around five meters of accuracy under good conditions. In early testing that integrates Niantic Spatial's VPS with Vantor's terrain data and Raptor software, Vantor Holdings, Inc. has seen up to a 70% reduction in error and down to roughly 1.5 meters in many scenarios. That level of precision becomes especially important when GPS is completely unavailable, and when operators would otherwise have little confidence in their location. In the room today, 59% have ranked accuracy as their primary decision factor for adopting new positioning technology. Q: how easily can this technology integrate into existing systems? Josh: One of the design principles behind both Raptor and VPS is flexibility. For example, Raptor software runs on existing hardware and typically uses the electro-optical camera already installed on a drone or similar aerial platform. Integration happens through an SDK, meaning manufacturers or integrators can incorporate the capability directly into their systems. The same principle applies across the broader architecture. Whether the device is a drone, a robot, or a handheld device running ATAK, the goal is to plug into the existing ecosystem rather than forcing operators to adopt entirely new hardware. Q: what are the current limitations of visual positioning systems? Tory: Like any technology, visual positioning has edge cases. Dense tree canopy can obscure visual features. Interiors of buildings can be challenging if the system doesn't have reference imagery. And extremely featureless environments like open ocean or deserts can make visual alignment more difficult. But in environments where visual features are present, the technology performs well. And when multiple sensors are working together across domains, those edge cases become easier to manage. Q: looking ahead, what does this enable in the next three to five years? Josh: The real breakthrough is interoperability. This is a great example of two companies coming together to make their systems interoperable for the good of the mission. When every sensor across space, air, and ground is accurately anchored to the same spatial foundation, you remove the friction that normally slows operations down. Instead of spending time aligning data sources, you can focus on decisions by leveraging fusion. That shared reference system also unlocks new possibilities for AI-enabled analysis and autonomous systems that depend on precise spatial awareness. Toward resilient autonomy and interoperability. As autonomy expands across defense, robotics, and mixed-reality systems, reliable positioning becomes essential for successful operations, especially in GPS-denied operations and autonomous navigation. Systems must continue operating when GPS fails. They must coordinate across domains. And they must share a common understanding of the physical world. The partnership between Niantic Spatial and Vantor is built around that vision: combining visual positioning technologies with a global spatial foundation to create a unified coordinate system that connects sensors across space, air, and ground. Learn more about Forge, Vivid Terrain, and the Niantic Spatial + Vantor partnership announcement. Achieve total clarity from space to ground. See how Vantor can help you take advantage of the most advanced spatial intelligence for unparalleled insight into its dynamic world and to power your autonomous systems across space, air, and ground.

SkyFi partners with Vantor to expand access to high-resolution Earth observation data. Photo: Vantor SkyFi and Vantor, formerly Maxar Intelligence, have partnered to deliver high-resolution Earth observation products and analytics to customers. SkyFi said Wednesday that, under the partnership, Vantor's satellite tasking, imagery and spatial content products will be available via its platform. Vantor is sponsoring the Potomac Officers Club's 2026 Defense R&D Summit on Jan. 29. The highly anticipated summit will bring together industry innovators and defense leaders to talk about the emerging capabilities shaping the future of the battlefield, such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and 5G and FutureG. Find out what capabilities the military needs to support American warfighters and forge new partnerships to advance national security missions. Click here to secure your seat. How does the skyfi-vantor partnership benefit users? Will Cocos, chief transformation officer at Vantor, said teaming up with SkyFi expands customer access to his company's spatial content products. "SkyFi has a fast-growing user base and an easy-to-use platform, making them an ideal partner to help us bring the most advanced space-based intelligence to more customers," he added. Under the partnership, SkyFi users will get access to Vantor's over two decades of archival satellite imagery, 3D terrain data and 2D global imagery basemaps. Enterprise users with SkyFi Pro accounts gain additional capabilities, such as application programming interface access for workflow integration, customizable revisit rates for areas of interest and tools to manage user budgets and access. The combined capabilities support diverse missions across environmental monitoring, disaster response, urban planning, resource management, infrastructure development and supply chain visibility. What role does Vantor play in space domain awareness? Vantor also provides spatial intelligence to enable national security missions. In 2025, the company secured a contract from the U.S. Space Force to deliver continuous tracking of orbital objects using its non-Earth imagery technology, capturing sub-10-centimeter resolution images of satellites and debris. Vantor also contributes to the Office of Space Commerce's Commercial COLA Gap Pathfinder and the Space Force Apollo Accelerator, where its space domain awareness tools support collision avoidance and orbital threat assessment.