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(Baloon-borne Swift craft soars toward the stratosphere. Source: Near Space Labs.)
High above commercial airspace, at altitudes reaching 100,000 feet, Near Space Labs’ balloon-borne platforms float quietly, collecting high-resolution imagery without burning jet fuel, filing flight plans, or competing for time in crowded aerial corridors. They do this by leveraging the power of winds that blow in different directions at different altitudes far above the earth. It’s a simple-yet-sophisticated, kind of approach that could almost be called “steampunk,” as it evokes not only the early age of aviation but perhaps even the age of sail. With this wind-driven navigation, Near Space Labs provides imagery that is more accurate than satellites and far more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly than fixed-wing aircraft.
Rema Matevosyan, CEO, Near Space Labs.
“It’s quiet, it’s beautiful, it’s energy-efficient,” says Near Space Labs, CEO Rema Metavosyan. “There’s an elegance to it—but also, it works—and we can fly anywhere.”
The Brooklyn-based startup has just closed a new funding round led by Bold Capital Partners (Santa Monica, Calif.), with participation from USAA (San Antonio, Texas) and IAG (Sydney, Australia)—a development that CEO and co-founder Rema Matevosyan calls “commercial validation” of the company’s insurance-first strategy. The round follows what she describes as a “breakthrough” year: a sixfold increase in revenue, significant commercial expansion, and growing traction within the property/casualty insurance space.
“We’re building data infrastructure for resilience,” Matevosyan says. “And we’ve found insurance to be the sector most aligned with that mission—both in terms of use cases and long-term partnerships.”
A New Kind of Earth Observation
Unlike satellites locked in orbit or fixed-wing aircraft burdened by regulatory overhead, Near Space Labs deploys lightweight observation devices on reusable stratospheric balloons that operate above regulated airspace. The company’s patented platform, known as “Swift,” is compact, modular, and fast to launch—requiring no pilot, hangar, or runway.
New for 2024 is a paraglider-based recovery system that allows the Swift to navigate its descent with precision, retrieve data rapidly, and relaunch for future missions. The system improves scalability, especially during catastrophe events when rapid deployment and post-event visibility are essential.
“After Hurricane Ian, the airspace was closed to manned flights, but not to us,” Matevosyan notes. “We were able to get high-resolution imagery into the hands of insurers before anyone else.”
Zooming in on Insurance
The latest round of funding reflects a deliberate shift in Near Space’s customer base. While the company still serves climate science and analytics customers, its core momentum now comes from insurers, reinsurers, brokers, and catastrophe modeling firms. The company has become a go-to provider for rapid post-disaster assessments and high-frequency underwriting imagery, especially in under-mapped regions like rural Iowa or upstate Vermont.
Near Space Labs Swift craft. (Click to enlarge.)
“In the past 12 months, we’ve seen our imagery used across the insurance value chain—from exposure assessment and underwriting to claims and reinsurance,” Matevosyan says. “Our data fills a critical gap—especially in places where traditional aerial capture is infrequent or low-resolution.”
The latest platform now supports standardized imagery at 7-centimeter resolution, with capacity to capture as finely as 5 centimeters—sufficient to assess roof condition, vegetation overhang, and even hail damage.
“We control the full hardware and software stack,” Matevosyan observes. “That allows us to iterate quickly and incorporate new sensors as insurance use cases evolve.”
Investors Reflect Strategic Fit
The current funding round stands out not just for the capital, but for the composition. In addition to Bold Capital’s interest in climate resilience, the participation of USAA and IAG signals confidence in the platform’s relevance to real-world underwriting and claims operations.
Swift craft returning to earth via paraglider. (Click to enlarge.)
According to Jillian Smith, who leads strategy at Near Space, the round may be unique in the earth observation sector: “We believe this is the first earth observation company raise made up exclusively of commercial and insurance investors—with no government or defense backing. It’s 100 percent commercial, and largely driven by the insurance industry.”
Looking Up and Ahead
As natural catastrophe frequency continues to rise—quadrupling since the 1980s per capita in the U.S., according to Matevosyan—the need for fast, reliable, high-resolution imagery grows more urgent. Insurers, she believes, are uniquely positioned to drive climate resilience—and Near Space Labs intends to be their eyes in the stratosphere.
“Insurance is about understanding and transferring risk,” she says. “And you can’t do that without the right data.”
“Whether people like it or not, insurance is one of the best tools that we have today to create that resilience,” Matevosyan continues. “There’s no climate resilience without financial resilience and there’s no financial resilience… without insurance.”
Near Space Labs Secures $20M in Series B Funding
Near Space Labs Speeds Accurate Property Imaging from the Stratosphere
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