Esper raised $5 million to map minerals from orbit

Esper raised $5 million to expand its hyperspectral satellite work, which reads the chemical composition of the Earth's surface from orbit. Mining and exploration companies use the imagery to find critical mineral deposits, and the same data serves agriculture, environmental monitoring and archaeology.

We backed Esper because hyperspectral data is a powerful input for critical mineral exploration at a time when the world urgently needs new supply, and doing it from space makes the search far cheaper and broader than fieldwork alone. The team has shown a low-cost, capital-efficient path to orbit and is building toward a constellation rather than betting on a single satellite. Critical minerals are now a strategic priority for many governments and industries, and demand for this kind of intelligence is expanding fast.

Back to the clippings file