World View, a Tucson, Ariz.-based developer of space flight technologies called “Stratollites”, closed a $15M Series B funding round.
The round was led by Canaan Partners with participation from Norwest Venture Partners, Tencent, Moment Ventures, and Base Ventures. As a part of the new round of funding, Deepak Kamra, General Partner at Canaan Partners, Vab Goel, General Partner at Norwest Venture Partners, and Tom Ingersoll (former CEO of Skybox Imaging) have joined World View’s Board of Directors.
The company intends to use the funds to accelerate the development and commercial adoption of its high-tech balloons that operate in the stratosphere.
Led by Jane Poynter, CEO, World View is advancing Stratollites, which are balloons that operate in the stratosphere offering directional capability over remote areas for extended periods of time. Stratollites can fly a variety of trajectories – from circumnavigating the earth to persistence over a location, maintain position over specific areas of interest for days, weeks, and eventually months on end, this allowing for more sustained measurements and monitoring capabilities over a targeted area. They can carry a wide variety of commercial payloads (remote sensors, telescopes, communications arrays, etc.). Unlike other technologies that require ideal conditions for launch, Stratollites can launch rapidly on demand, and safely return payloads back to earth after mission completion.
FinSMEs
29/04/2016