Austin—Slingshot Aerospace has raised $5 million in additional seed funding led by its previous investor ATX Seed Partners, which gave the company $3.25 million in a seed round in December 2017. The Rise of the Rest Seed fund also participated in the add-on financing.
Slingshot uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to process troughs of image data of Earth collected by satellites, airplanes, and drones, processing and analyzing it for both the government and insurers in the commercial sector. The Austin-based company plans to use the funding for product development and for new hires in finance, business development, engineering, and data sciences.
For its private sector, insurance customers, Slingshot uses its data analytics software to assess the fallout of natural disasters, providing the insurer with assessments of damage to properties they insure and helping them assess where to send adjusters, the company says in a video presentation on its website. Its work with the government also touches the military. The company’s technology could monitor the possible development of a military base or the real-time impact of bombs used in a war zone daily, co-founder Melanie Stricklan says in another video on the website.
Slingshot was co-founded in 2016 by Stricklan, David Godwin, and Thomas Ashman and has raised $9.1 million total. The company also received a $6 million contract earlier this month from the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, it says on its website. Slingshot also has an office in El Segundo, CA.
Founded in 2014, ATX Seed Partners announced a new funding in February. The Rise of the Rest Seed Fund is focused on investing in so-called flyover states and is a part of Revolution, the investment firm founded by AOL co-founder Steve Case.
