Balloon imagery firm raises $30M

Empower Field at Mile High as seen from an Urban Sky balloon. (Courtesy Urban Sky)

Investment in Urban Sky is ballooning.

The Denver-based business, which makes and deploys balloons to take satellite images, has closed a $30 million funding round, according to SEC filings. 

It is not clear who led this raise, but New York-based New Legacy Ventures and Lerer Hippeau, alongside Virginia’s Lavrock Ventures, led a $9.75 million Series A in 2023, TechCrunch reported. DA Ventures, a Denver Angels affiliate, also participated in that raise.

Urban Sky’s floaters take pictures from the Earth’s stratosphere, which is lower than where most balloon imagery companies roam: space. 

“We saw it as an untapped layer of Earth’s atmosphere,” Andrew Antonio, who co-founded the business with Chief Technology Officer Jered Leidich in 2019, told BusinessDen in 2023. “You’re going to see a lot of utility and value because it’s cheaper than space and in a lot of ways better.”

The balloons are reusable, weigh less than six pounds and can launch from anywhere a truck can park. In 2023, Antonio said Urban Sky’s images cost around $5 per square kilometer — nearly 600 percent cheaper than the $35 he said other companies typically charge.

At that time, he also said Urban Sky’s clients included oil and gas or insurance companies. He also said the company, which is based at 4800 Race St, captured pictures for Denver Water to help determine the effects of wildfires on water quality.

Antonio previously told BusinessDen that the company planned to double the size of its then 14 person staff. 

This round brings the company’s total investment to roughly $45 million, documents show.