Space has ceased to be a place only reserved for astronauts and rockets. For decades, thousands of satellites have orbited Earth, continuously receiving and sending data. Even so, in recent years this information and data have ceased to be a tool reserved exclusively for governments and large corporations and are becoming an accessible and useful tool for administrations and companies, but even for small producers and farmers. This is the objective of the Catalan startup Spascat: to democratize access to this data and make it possible for companies from different sectors to take advantage of its potential.
With only two years of experience, since Roger Huerta and Bernat Gené decided to found it in El Masnou in 2023, Spascat has managed to create a computer system that makes satellite-generated data accessible and understandable, transforming it into useful information for different sectors, from the blue economy to agriculture. "At that time, Catalonia was beginning to stand out in the New Space, with the first strategy to position itself globally, and, as a company, we had the ambition to be part of this growing ecosystem from the very beginning," remarks Roger Huerta, CEO of the startup.
"It was the right place and time," summarizes Huerta. Not only because of a growing space ecosystem, but also because, in recent years, images and data generated by satellites "have been democratized, when just a decade ago they were reserved exclusively for governments and large corporations, mainly for military purposes," adds Bernat Gené, the company's CTO. A change that has opened the door to new possibilities for using this data, which can be integrated into processes that, until now, were done manually, such as, for example, the control of cultivated fields.
Even so, despite the fact that access to this data has been democratized in recent years —with programs like Copernicus, a European system that offers publicly accessible data, but also private companies that commercialize images captured by these devices, or even by Catalan satellites like Menut— this information is not easily understandable. "Downloading a satellite image has no value if we don't know how to interpret what we are looking at," points out Gené.
And it is in this process of translation and understanding of the images and data from these devices that pilot space where Spascat comes into play. The company has its own algorithm for downloading, ingesting, digesting, and presenting these images captured by satellites, complemented with other data also provided by these devices, so that they can be used even by small companies that do not have a specialized technical team in georeferencing or cartography.
This was precisely the objective pursued two years ago by Huerta and Gené, two engineers who had known each other since high school and who, after years of independent careers, decided to return to their hometown and bet on the Catalan space sector with their own startup. They did so after years working abroad and in different companies: Huerta in the United States, but also at the European Space Agency from Germany and at Indra in the Catalan capital; and Gené in Monaco in the shipping sector.
The necessary impetus to found the company came with the victory of the Smart Catalonia Challenge 2022, an innovation contest promoted by the Department of Digital Policies of the Generalitat that encourages freelancers and entrepreneurs to devise creative solutions for public challenges. In less than three years of trajectory, the company has managed to consolidate itself, tripling its turnover each year, and already has a staff of five employees. And the goal is to continue growing even more in the coming years, with the forecast of reaching a turnover of one million euros by 2027, after having started its commercial phase.
Thus, the startup already has specific products designed for specific sectors to be able to profit from this data. On the one hand, they have developed Sorraline technology to monitor the state of the coastline from images captured by these devices. A system that allows, for example, to track the amount of beach sand on a weekly basis. "With this system, much more reliable and updated information is obtained, since some City Councils until now used maps or cartography that had not been updated in years", Huerta points out. Currently, the system is being used in the Masnou City Council, although it has also landed in Italy, hand in hand with the Italian company Coste360, where they have integrated into their platform.
Even so, they have also applied their technology to precision agriculture, specializing in tree and fruit crops. "Although agriculture is one of the pioneering sectors in the use of small planes, drones and even satellites, the systems are not usually designed for the control of tree systems, due to their particularities, and, for this reason, from Spascat we want to focus on this type of crops", insists Gené. For now, however, they have focused the product on vineyards, based on a public-private collaboration project, with the Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, the Institut Cartogràfic i Geològic de Catalunya and Raventós-Codorníu.
"Until now, farmers used to use images from small planes or drones, but satellite photographs not only allow to reduce costs, but also to have more updated information", summarizes Huerta. For now, Spascat's technology already controls and monitors 4,000 hectares of vineyards in Catalonia.
Looking ahead, the startup also plans to adapt its technology to other specific sectors, such as energy, facilitating the monitoring and tracking of high-voltage line infrastructures. To scale its product and reach new markets, the company plans to seek external funding by 2026, as until now the startup had been financed through public aid —such as the 50,000 euros for being part of the ESA BIC Barcelona aerospace incubator installed in the Parc Mediterrani de la Tecnologia— and the commercialization of its services.
Although the company has already landed in countries like Italy, Spascat wants to consolidate its presence in the Mediterranean territory, for example by extending its technology for vineyards throughout all Catalan designations of origin, to then expand into Portugal, France, Greece… But also beyond, even reaching China, a country that also has a large number of vineyards and where its platform could have a high number of clients.