Google to Buy Skybox Imaging for $500 Million

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Google to Buy Skybox Imaging for $500 Million
By MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED JUNE 10, 2014 2:16 PM 1 Comments
  • balloons and drones — to provide online access, especially to people in sparsely populated locations.

    “Their satellites will help keep our maps accurate with up-to-date imagery,” a representative for Google said in a statement. “Over time, we also hope that Skybox’s team and technology will be able to help improve Internet access and disaster relief — areas Google has long been interested in.”

    dbpix-skybox-articleInline.jpg
    Matt McDonaldA satellite being worked on in Skybox Imaging’s facilities in Mountain View, Calif.
    In a corporate blog post, Skybox wrote, “The time is right to join a company who can challenge us to think even bigger and bolder, and who can support us in accelerating our ambitious vision.”

    Founded in 2009 by four Stanford business school students, Skybox was created with the idea that launching cheaper satellites could upend the space industry. While traditional satellite makers like DigitalGlobe focus on high-end offerings, the start-up uses off-the-shelf components and aims at launching more satellites, more cheaply.

    High-resolution imaging, the founders decided, was a useful first product.

    Many prospective investors initially viewed the company skeptically, and it struggled to find financing until it raised money from the likes of Khosla Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners. All told, it has raised about $91 million.

    “No one expected this company to succeed,” said David Cowan, a partner at Bessemer. “People in aerospace wrote it off as a Mickey Mouse attempt to do something that was impossible.”

    Those impressions changed when Skybox succeeded in launching its first satellite, SkySat-1, last November, according to Mr. Cowan.

    That cheaper-is-better approach likely inspired Google’s interest, according to Mr. Cowan.

    “Google bought this because Sergey and Larry have ambitious designs on space,” he said, referring to Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. “If they’re going to do something big in space, it’s going to be through small, cheap satellites.”

    A version of this article appears in print on 06/11/2014, on page B9 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Google Buy.
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