ST. LOUIS, Sept. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The NGA Accelerator Powered by Capital Innovators recently selected eight companies from more than 208 applicants to participate in the second cohort of its geospatial accelerator program. The St. Louis-based accelerator will launch on September 28, 2021, and is enabled through a Partnership Intermediary Agreement between the Missouri Technology Corporation (MTC) and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). NGA's Moonshot Labs will host the accelerator cohort for in person collaboration and events.

The 13-week accelerator is managed by Capital Innovators and sources technology from startups to help solve geospatial challenges that focus on government and industry opportunities in four core areas: data management; advanced analytics and modeling; data integrity and security; and artificial intelligence.

Each company will receive a $100,000 non-dilutive grant, mentoring from subject matter experts from the NGA and Capital Innovators, as well as investor connections, and office accommodations in St. Louis.

"The accelerator is one of the ways NGA is pursuing open and unclassified innovation in the greater St. Louis region," said Josh White, NGA's lead problem owner for the second cohort. "It provides NGA analysts with an opportunity to work with small businesses and startups to discover solutions that can directly impact our challenges."

"Following the success of the inaugural cohort, we're excited to launch a second cohort to introduce eight additional companies to St. Louis's rapidly growing geospatial sector," said Jack Scatizzi, Executive Director of MTC. "The success of St. Louis's geospatial sector will continue to positively impact the economic development outcomes for the entire state."

The eight startups selected for the second cohort are:

• AirWorks (Boston, MA): AirWorks builds artificial intelligence-powered software for architecture, engineering and construction professionals to autonomously analyze aerial and remote sensing data. With AirWorks' patented algorithms and web application customers can automatically generate engineering project plans, start projects 2 months earlier and dramatically reduce project risk at 80% lower cost.
• Cambrio (Sudbury, MA): Cambrio builds powerful dataflow automation for domains where expert analysis is required but the complexity of the data exceeds human ability to integrate and analyze at scale, as in: geospatial, healthcare, and life sciences. Using Cambrio's technology, domain experts compose code and data assets into dataflows at 100X the speed and scale of a typical data pipeline.
• CITYDATA.ai (San Francisco, CA): CITYDATA.ai is a govtech company that provides mobility intelligence for smarter cities and real-world businesses. They crowdsource mobility data for 1580 cities worldwide and apply machine learning to simulate the density and movement patterns of people. Their CITYDASH.ai and CITYCHAT.ai products are actively used by local government agencies, enterprise businesses and research organizations.
• Cognitive Space (Houston, TX): Cognitive Space helps organizations fly their satellites – by revolutionizing satellite operations with the power of artificial intelligence for mission operations, collections planning, and communications link coordination - dramatically improving the way Earth is monitored for economic, environmental, and national security understanding.
• Omniscient Labs (Stanford, CA): Omniscient Labs is building automated satellite and aerial imagery analytics capabilities using computer vision to enable persistent monitoring of areas of interest for defense and commercial markets. Its geospatial analytics platform fuses this data with user-provided and third-party datasets for easy integration with users' existing software, helping them monitor status, visualize trends, and achieve enhanced situational awareness.
• PixElement (Columbus, OH): PixElement builds accurate and precise 3D models of the world from imagery. Whether from drones, aircraft, or satellites, PixElement captures 3D reality to enable data driven solutions for industry and defense.
• Simerse (St. Louis, MO): Simerse helps companies and organizations in agriculture, logistics, sensing, retail, and automotive enhance their artificial intelligence models by generating synthetic data.
• Vidrovr (New York, NY): Vidrovr enables actionable insights and awareness through multimedia understanding. Using state of the art artificial intelligence video, images and audio data can be monitored, analyzed, and acted on.

"This application cycle for the NGA Accelerator saw the same high caliber of startups and founders as the first cohort," said Judy Sindecuse, CEO of Capital Innovators, "Through the highly selective and rigorous evaluation process, these eight companies rose to the top, and we are eager to support them and propel them toward achieving their goals."

The third cohort of the accelerator, funded through the partnership, is projected to launch in late spring 2022 and Capital Innovators will begin soliciting applications in late fall 2021. Entrepreneurs interested in participating in the upcoming cohort should visit the Capital Innovators website for more information.

About the NGA Accelerator:
The NGA Accelerator is a first-of-its-kind program that partners a leading government intelligence agency and a top-ranked accelerator to help advance cutting-edge innovations in the geospatial market. This unique 13-week program will provide startups the opportunity to engage directly with NGA and receive valuable feedback, connections, pilot opportunities, and unparalleled resources to help their businesses scale. The Accelerator is searching for best-in-breed businesses developing novel dual-use technologies (products that have both commercial and military uses), which will grow the number of geospatial solutions available to NGA. https://capitalinnovators.com/nga-accelerator-program

About the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency:
NGA delivers world-class geospatial intelligence that provides a decisive advantage to policymakers, warfighters, intelligence professionals and first responders. NGA is a unique combination of intelligence agency and combat support agency. It is the world leader in timely, relevant, accurate and actionable geospatial intelligence. NGA enables the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense to fulfill the president's national security priorities to protect the nation. For more information about NGA, visit us online at http://www.nga.mil, Facebook, Twitter, Flipboard, SoundCloud or YouTube.

About the Missouri Technology Corporation:
The Missouri Technology Corporation is a public-private partnership created to promote entrepreneurship and foster the growth of new and emerging high-tech companies. MTC's vision is to transform Missouri through the power of entrepreneurship by serving as a catalyst for technology-based innovation to achieve sustainable economic growth and its mission is to provide leadership and make strategic investments that help entrepreneurs create and grow technology-based Missouri businesses. http://www.missouritechnology.com.

About Capital Innovators:
Capital Innovators provides top-ranked accelerator programs, venture fund management, and corporate innovation. It manages private and corporate venture funds focused on technology, consumer products, and energy innovations. Capital Innovators has helped scale 136 companies and assisted them in raising over $400 MM in follow-on investment and creating over 2,000 jobs. https://capitalinnovators.com/

NGA's Moonshot Labs:
Moonshot Labs is an innovation tech hub that provides an unclassified environment for exploring and developing solutions that align with NGA's operational requirements. Moonshot Labs is located in downtown St Louis at the T-REX building.

Approved for Public Release #21-940

Media Contact

Jack Scatizzi, Missouri Technology Corporation, +1 (314) 626-5131, jack.scatizzi@missouritechnology.com

SOURCE Missouri Technology Corporation