Aspiring Entrepreneurs Learn the Ups and Downs of Starting a Geospatial Business During IGARSS 2025 TIE Session

Part I

By Kevin Corbley

GRSS hosted another remarkably successful IGARSS event earlier this month in Australia, and for the seventh year, I had the honor of moderating two sessions on Entrepreneurship. On August 6, the GRSS Technology Industry and Education (TIE) committee hosted a panel entitled “Accelerate Your Geospatial Startup” followed by one-on-one “Geospatial Business Brainstorming” idea pitches between attendees and speakers.

The Startup panel featured entrepreneurs who had started and built at least one business in the geospatial industry. They were –

• Alisa Starkey, Founder/Chief Science Officer at Ozius in Brisbane, Australia
• Abhilash Bhat, Chief of Staff to the CEO of Pixxel in Bengaluru, India
• Rakshit Bhatt, VP/Co-Founder of GalaxEye in Chennai, India
• Shawana Johnson, President of Global Marketing Insights, Brecksville, OH, USA

I kicked off the panel with an overview of what it takes to launch a successful commercial enterprise based on my own experiences working with the startup teams of geospatial companies such as EOSAT, Space Imaging, Radarsat, GeoEye, RapidEye among others.

One important theme I highlighted was the importance of the Team in implementing an idea for a new business, product, or service. In fact, it is the Team that investors most often want described in pitch sessions because an idea has little value unless there is a balanced group of individuals who can bring it to fruition.

I reminded attendees of the old saying: If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.

Each presenter discussed the current status of their business while also describing the startup journey that led to their initial and ongoing success. They each touched on a variety of critical startup factors, including the building of their teams, searching for funding, and participating in business accelerators or incubators. These stories were loaded with valuable lessons, and at the conclusion of each, one or two key points are reiterated.

Alisa Starkey told the story of founding Ozius in Brisbane, Australia, as an environmental intelligence company using satellite data and AI to solve complex environmental challenges. The Ozius journey, however, took an interesting turn during COVID when the company transformed from being an analytics services provider to offering services via an online analytics platform called Ozius Biome.

The Biome engine delivers detailed insights into Australia and New Zealand’s forests to support forest regeneration and biodiversity projects, critical infrastructure planning, and land management optimization with a focus on empowering customers to achieve their sustainable development goals. Creation of an analytics platform was not in the original Ozius startup plans.

As Alisa described it, “Businesses are often started to disrupt an industry, but sometimes you have to disrupt your own business!” And that’s what Biome did for Ozius.

I used this anecdote to caution the entrepreneurs in attendance to keep an open mind about what their businesses would become. Nearly half of businesses that get started are dramatically different than what their founders first envisioned, and another large percentage are markedly different after five or 10 years in operation. But that’s typical and crucial – a business that isn’t evolving is often not growing.

Unfortunately due to a technical problem, Rakshit Bhatt was unable to present remotely. This was supposed to be his second appearance at an IGARSS TIE Forum event. In 2022 at IGARSS in Kuala Lumpur, Rakshit gave us a sneak peek into GalaxEye of Chennai, India, and its plans for an Earth Observation satellite. The great news is that GalaxEye has completed development of its first satellite with onboard SAR and optical imaging capabilities. A constellation is planned.

Part II of this article will cover the talks by Abhilash Bhat of Pixxel and Dr. Shawana Johnson of Global Marketing Insights.