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What is Blackshark.ai?
Blackshark.ai, a Geospatial Intelligence company based in the United States, has secured $35 million in Series A funding. The company is renowned for its creation of a 3D Digital Twin of the planet and has recently introduced an AI-driven solution for detecting and monitoring objects in Earth’s orbit.
Blackshark.ai aims to further its mission of enhancing its 3D high-frequency mapping and geospatial intelligence capabilities by utilizing the recent funding. This will enable the company to provide greater value across various sectors and tackle global challenges. The allocated funds will be utilized to support the advancement of strategic technologies and strengthen blackshark.ai’s sales and marketing endeavors.
Michael Putz, the CEO of Blackshark.ai, affirms that the recent collaborations enhance our mission to make high-frequency 3D mapping applications accessible to a wide array of geospatial scenarios, encompassing both public and private sectors.
Microsoft’s Flight Simulator video game features a specially designed Digital Twin of Earth. This advanced system serves as a central hub for interpreting a diverse range of imagery, which may vary in terms of time and origin.
From Gaming Roots to Geospatial Mastery: Unveiling Orca Huntr by Blackshark.ai
Blackshark.ai has leveraged its background as a gaming company to bring a unique perspective to the geospatial domain. This expertise has enabled them to effectively interpret orbital and aerial imagery from various angles. As a result, they have developed the Orca Huntr platform, which is designed to accurately locate, label, and track objects from orbit.
By developing a linear model, the company successfully eliminated the intricacies associated with geospatial datasets and their interpretation, resulting in a user-friendly solution.
According to Devin Coldewey’s TechCrunch article, the product’s potential impact becomes apparent once you witness it in action. Despite its complexity, the product’s interface is deceptively simple: by scribbling on the desired area of an image, the system can quickly locate more of that particular object.
Transforming Raw Data into Geospatial Digital Twins
Blackshark.ai‘s innovation is centered around a cutting-edge platform that converts large amounts of unprocessed data from satellite and aerial images into geospatial Digital Twins with semantic labels. This advanced software not only streamlines the process of detecting and categorizing objects with speed and precision but also allows for in-depth analysis of land use and land cover. By eliminating the requirement for extensive training data that is both expensive and time-consuming, this platform revolutionizes the field of object detection and classification on a large scale.
Blackshark.ai’s Orca Hunter possesses the capability to precisely locate various objects, ranging from jets and solar panels to rivers and wildfire zones, simply by using the cursor. Typically, such identification and labeling tasks demand both expertise and a significant amount of time.
The task of scaling this project poses a significant challenge, as it demands a substantial investment of funds and outsourcing. Moreover, when considering defense and safety concerns, the complexity of the project increases further, as outsourcing the interpretation of satellite imagery becomes unfeasible.
Michael explained to TechCrunch that their approach is not to completely automate the process but rather to incorporate an intelligent human in the loop, which sets them apart from other solutions. However, since AI is not always 100% accurate, they continuously refine it. In contrast, everyone else follows the conventional method of labeling. Michael further emphasized that Orca simplifies the process by eliminating the need for coding and making it user-friendly. With Orca, any user who can operate a mouse can easily detect anything, ensuring higher accuracy and security.
Michael highlighted his aspiration to establish themselves as the primary geospatial search engine, providing real-time and practical geospatial insights on a global level. The progress towards achieving this goal appears to be on a promising trajectory.
