A setback for Satellogic after debuting on Wall Street: how much its shares fell on its second day on the Nasdaq

Satellogic, the space company that seeks to democratize access to space and that has already put more than 10 nanosatellites into orbit, debuted on Wall Street on January 26, 2022, one step away from being the twelfth Argentine unicorn after the investment received for its IPO.

However, not everything is rosy for the national startup: in less than 24 hours of its arrival on the NASDAQ, its shares plunged up to 25%, to US$6.05, after touching its maximum of US$9, 25 on the same day as his debut.

The fall, however, was extended to multiple transnational companies, with the Dow Jones index falling 0.2%. Other technology companies lost up to 10%.

The company founded by Emiliano Kargieman and Gerardo Richarte, came close to a valuation of US$1 billion, leaving it one step away from its unicorn title, but its market capitalization fell and is now around US$681 million.

Satellogic, which employs 320 people worldwide and expects to double its workforce in 18 months, joins renowned Argentine companies such as Mercado Libre, Globant and Despegar on the Nasdaq.

Satellogic, the firm founded by Emiliano Kargieman, debuted on Wall Street on January 26, 2022

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Satellogic had announced its IPO in New York last July through a merger with Cantor Fitzgerald's CF Acquisition Corp. V (or SPAC), which finally came to fruition. It is listed on Nasdaq under the symbol SATL.

With its IPO, the group will receive an additional investment of some US$262 million, which includes proceeds from a SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) trust account and a private placement of US$100 million. headed by SoftBank and Cantor Fitzgerald herself, among others.

Endeavor Argentina has already confirmed its coronation as a unicorn on social networks, so it would join the select club made up of Mercado Libre, Globant, Despegar, OLX, Auth0, Mural, Vercel, Bitfarms, Aleph Holdings, Ualá and Tienda Nube.

In total, Satellogic has already launched 21 commercial satellites into orbit, among which are Fresco and Batata, Captain Beto, Tita, Milanesat and Manolito, all nicknamed Creole. From these, your company is responsible for studying all kinds of phenomena in real time: from climate change to traffic on the roads or agricultural production that crosses the world day by day.

The company grew exponentially this past year. In 2021, it received a significant investment from the flagship millionaire in the space sector, Elon Musk, through his company Space X, which will be in charge of developing its future satellites.

More recently, the startup received some welcome news for its business, and it is aiming even higher for 2022. The Liberty Strategic Capital fund, owned by former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, will invest $150 million in the company created in 2010.

Mnuchin is an American banker, film producer and fund manager, who was his country's chancellor in the presidency of Donald Trump and is known for having a keen eye when it comes to investing in companies.

Steven Mnuchin, banker, investor and former secretary of the treasury during the presidency of Donald Trump

"We look forward to continuing our mission to democratize access to geospatial data with this partnership," the company said in a statement.

Gazing into space

Emiliano Kargieman often says that "the best way to predict the future is to invent it" and he is on his way to achieving it.

After spending a summer at the NASA Ames Campus in Silicon Valley, Kargieman, a young man with a passion for computers and space, began the process to develop his new project in which he would apply all his experience learned so far for the space industry. the satellites.

The idea was to build a platform to provide spatial information services but without large investments in infrastructure. To achieve this, he called his lifelong friend and with whom he had founded Core, Gerardo Richarte, current CTO of Satellogic, and they got into action.

"Satellogic was born from a reflection on how to make better use of the Earth's resources," his partner explained years later. But the duo at that time knew little about satellites. So they decided to apply some software ideas to that new world.

Basically, what the industry did was design it designed to last a long time, but that brought with it a very high cost. Kargieman and Richarte approached the project with the opposite logic: invest as little as possible and not worry about failures, since it would be cheap to replace them and with more modern technology. This will also allow satellites to be launched more often.

Emiliano Kargieman, founder of Satellogic

But what do they do?

The company manufactures nanosatellites designed to be much cheaper than traditional ones: 1,000 times cheaper, according to Kargieman himself. Since its foundation, they have already put into orbit many that are lighter and smaller than traditional ones, and with the capacity to be produced on a scale.

They measure a little less than a meter and weigh 40 kilos, when traditional satellites weigh hundreds. Thus, the company is working on the formation of a constellation to take photos of the Earth that allow accessible geospatial information to be obtained for everyday decision-making, in all types of industries.

The capacity of each of the nanosatellites allows to collect about 300,000 square kilometers of data on a daily basis. And they have the ability to produce full-motion videos up to two minutes long.

With the images obtained, the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence team, Satellogic collects data that it then provides to its clients, which can be private companies or governments.

Satellogic collects data that it then provides to its clients, which may be private companies or governments.

"Satellogic is a company that is building an engine to understand what is happening on planet Earth, in real time. Our goal is to analyze information from every square meter and derive knowledge to improve decision-making for industry, governments and individuals" , is Kargieman's definition of his business.

Thus, segments such as agriculture, forestry, energy, finance or even insurance can access relevant information for their business. It is, strictly speaking, a new market with a potential size of US$150,000 million in which they are pioneers.

At Satellogic they believe that monitoring changes in real time on a planetary scale will transform the relationship between people and the planet, and will help to face the most pressing challenges.

The company is already working with large agricultural and oil companies, helping them to monitor assets such as oil pipelines or deposits, or to follow the state of crops, but they can also provide other types of information, such as measuring the grain stock in a silo bag.

The first satellite of the fleet was launched in 2013, and they baptized it "Capitán Beto". The first three to reach space were prototypes, and the rest are already capable of capturing high-resolution data. They orbit at an altitude of about 450 kilometers and travel at 27,000 kilometers per hour, going around the Earth every 90 minutes.

The company manufactures nanosatellites designed to be much cheaper than traditional ones, and with many more functionalitiesIt may interest you

He was a hacker, worked at AFIP and left two careers: the story of Emiliano Kagierman, the founder of Satellogic

To grow, the firm has already received other important investment capitals such as Tencent (China), the IDB Lab (United States), Pitanga (Brazil), Valor Capital Group (United States) and CrunchFund (United States).

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