Hydrosat

Hydrosat measures heat from orbit to see water stress before it becomes visible damage. A plant short of water warms hours before it wilts, so thermal infrared imagery reads crop stress days ahead of the optical satellites most agriculture relies on. The company flies its own instruments, VanZyl-1 since August 2024 and VanZyl-2 since June 2025, and turns the readings into irrigation guidance through IrriWatch, the Dutch software company it acquired in 2023.

The bet is that temperature is the most undervalued measurement in Earth observation. Optical imagery is crowded and radar is filling up, while fine-resolution thermal data barely exists commercially, and the customers who need it, farmers, water districts and defence analysts, currently make do with public satellites that revisit too rarely and see too coarsely.

Two satellites are up and the analytics business predates them, which cuts both ways: revenue exists, and much of it ran on other people's data before Hydrosat's own instruments flew. Most contract announcements, a European water-productivity programme, a California county monitoring deal, come from the company's own newsroom rather than independent reporting. A Series B in early 2026 funds more satellites, and the constellation the pricing depends on is still mostly ahead.