HawkEye 360 Inc. has closed $145 million in new funding, priming the company to achieve transformational growth in its data and analytical services product line.
This Series D round was led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners and Seraphim Space Investment Trust (LSE:SSIT). Additional funding was provided by the Strategic Development Fund (SDF), the investment arm of UAE’s Tawazun Holding. Joining the round were new investors Jacobs, Gula Tech Adventures, 116 Street Ventures, and New North Ventures, as well as existing investors Advance, Razor’s Edge, NightDragon, SVB Capital, Shield Capital, Adage Capital, and others. This brings the total amount of capital raised to date to $302 million.
HawkEye 360 is delivering a source of global knowledge based on RF geospatial intelligence to those working to make the world a safer place. The company will use the funding to expand their satellite constellation and complementary infrastructure, accelerating the growth of the company’s services to customers in the humanitarian, environmental, commercial and national security sectors.
Increasingly, the lifeblood of the modern digital economy is carried by the electromagnetic spectrum. Many types of objects emit radio frequencies for vital functions such as communication, navigation and security.
The HawkEye 360 constellation detects, characterizes and precisely geolocates these RF signals from a broad range of emitters, including VHF marine radios, UHF push-to-talk radios, maritime and land-based radar systems, L-band satellite devices and emergency beacons. By processing and analyzing this RF data, the company delivers actionable insights and a unique knowledge for operations across a broad range of sectors.
In the years ahead, the company will expand on its proven capabilities to deliver persistent RF data and analytics. This next phase of growth, backed by the latest funding round, will feature faster revisit rates, greater signal collection and enhanced analytics to address a large set of mission needs for clients.
“HawkEye 360 is pleased to be welcoming phenomenal new partners to our world class investment family, all of whom share our vision of using revolutionary commercial RF-monitoring capabilities to produce positive impacts for humanity and the environment,” said HawkEye 360 CEO, John Serafini. “As a new, well-backed space data and analytics company with a unique dual-use technology, we are ideally situated not only to create great value for the defense, intelligence and national security communities, but also to change the paradigm for organizations confronting complex challenges like illegal fishing, poaching, maritime smuggling and environmental degradation.”
“HawkEye 360 stands out as the clear leader in commercial RF data and analytics,” said Nick Sinai, Managing Director at Insight Partners. “We are excited to partner with HawkEye 360 as the company continues to scale up and to expand its geospatial intelligence technology capabilities for both government and commercial markets.” Nick Sinai will join HawkEye 360’s board.
“We seek to invest into the emerging category leaders building a digital platform in the sky,” said Mark Boggett, CEO of Seraphim Space (Manager) LLP, Seraphim Investment Trust’s investment manager. “We can say with conviction that HawkEye 360 is the undisputed global champion in radio frequency analysis, a market we believe will grow to billions of dollars over the next few years. We’ve carefully built our relationship with HawkEye 360 since 2017, culminating with them participating in the AWS Space Accelerator managed by Seraphim. Our subsequent $25 million investment, as co-lead alongside Insight Ventures, in the D Series reflects the potential we believe this breakthrough technology will have across the environmental and security sectors. We are convinced that HawkEye 360 has both the technology advantage together with the commercial and governmental relationships to transform, reshape and develop the industry on a global scale at speed.”
PJT Partners served as exclusive financial advisor and placement agent to HawkEye 360 in connection with the Series D capital raise. WilmerHale acted as legal counsel for HawkEye 360 in connection with the transaction.