Australian remote sensing startup Esper wants to capture hyperspectral imagery from space at a fraction of the price of its competitors.
Armed with just $1 million in pre-seed funding and assistance from the Australian government in their first mission, Esper is aiming to beat out its better-capitalized peers with lower-cost tech.
That’s what really separates us from all the other spectrometers and hyperspectral hardware that’s being put up there,” Esper CEO and co-founder Shoaib Iqbal said.
There’s a lot of software that really comes into play to make sure it works that way.
Esper is planning on launching a second demonstrator satellite with identical hardware later this spring with India’s ISRO.
The U.S. government sanctioned a Russian national for allegedly playing a “pivotal role” in the ransomware attack against Australian health insurance giant Medibank that exposed the sensitive information of almost 10 million patients.
The breach is believed to have impacted several high-profile Medibank customers, including senior Australian government lawmakers.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Ermakov shortly after the Australian government imposed first-of-its-kind sanctions against the Russian national.
According to the U.S. Treasury, REvil ransomware has been deployed on approximately 175,000 computers worldwide, garnering at least $200 million in ransom payments.
The FSB’s surprise operation came just months after the U.S. Department of Justice charged a 22-year-old Ukrainian citizen linked to the REvil ransomware gang due to his alleged role in the Kaseya attack.
Down under, only 3% of venture capital funding went to all-women-founded teams, and 10% went to teams with at least one woman founder.
In 2021 and 2020, 21% and 25%, respectively, of VC funding in Australia went to startups with at least one woman founder.
A report commissioned by consulting firm the Creative Co-Operative found that in 2021, despite a record increase in VC funding in Australia — about $10 billion — just 0.03% went to Bla(c)k women and women of color founders.
The VC aims to raise another $100 million for its Fund 2 in the spring of 2024.
Beyond just giving women money, Warren and F5 want to create generational change for a billion women across India, Southeast Asia and Australia.
Equity Down Under: How Australian startups can crack the US marketListen here or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines.
For this episode of Equity, we spoke to two Aussie VCs: Dan Krasnostein of Square Peg and Gabrielle Munzer of Main Sequence.
Connect with Equity on X and Threads @EquityPod, and keep up with all of TechCrunch’s podcasts @TechCrunchPods on TikTok.
Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts.
