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European Unicorns?

In May this year, GP Bullhound has published its second report [1] on the European “unicorns” and comparison with others around the world. A unicorn is a start-up company which has managed to reach $1b in valuation and GP Bullhound is looking particularly at those engaged in internet technology.

The findings are interesting in that they show the gulf between Europe and the US in particular. They find a total of 40 unicorns in Europe compared to 30 (net gain of 10) for the same survey conducted in 2014 with 13 new ones appearing and 3 having dropped off the list. In the US, there was a net gain of 22 unicorns.

Then, taking the 3 top valued companies in the US, their total valuation is $0.75t. This compares with $0.5t for the top 3 in China, $50b for the top three in Africa, but only $25b for the top three in Europe. Furthermore, whilst the total value of the unicorns in Europe is around $120b; Apple alone has a value of $750b, Facebook is at $240b and even Uber is valued at $50b. Clearly Europe has a long way to go to catch up.

What can we learn? I was reminded of the two acquisitions last summer where Urthcast bought Deimos Imaging and PlanetLabs bought Blackbridge/Rapideye. Europe is good at research and innovation and even early development but is less good at exploiting the results. It seems that European owners sell out early rather than running their winners to achieve bigger gains later. CartoDB is another example where this happened along with a well-known example, Skype. Developed in Europe; Commercialised in the US.

Our goal at EARSC is to help develop the industry. 2016 promises to be a significant year when maybe we can start to see some of the potential being realised.

[1] http://www.gpbullhound.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/GP-Bullhound-Research-Billion-Dollar-Companies-2015.pdf

Commercialised in Europe?

Just before Christmas, Google and the UN-FAO announced that they are to collaborate to make geospatial tracking and mapping products more accessible, providing high-technology assistance to countries tackling climate change and much greater capacity to experts developing forest and land-use policies. “For FAO, this is not just a partnership. This is a strategic alliance,” said FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva.

This partnership will see Google Maps providing 1200 trusted tester credentials on Google Earth Engine to FAO staff and partners, while also providing training and receiving feedback on users’ needs and experiences. Ironically, the software which FAO bring to the partnership (Open Foris) has been developed with the financial support of Finland, Germany and Norway.

The agreement shows the power of geo-information to transform lives; in this case by enabling FAO workers in the field to quickly get access to key information. It is a powerful reminder of the public good benefits which EO technology can bring.

It also shows once again how European investment and innovation is not fully exploited to the benefit of the European industry and this chimed with the recent report which I read from GP Bullhound looking at the relative performance of Internet companies in Europe and the US (see my previous blogpost). It is clear that we do not lack innovation in Europe but we do somewhere lack the ability to turn this into global business – as Google has done and of course the other “FANG’s” (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, Google) which have dominated the US market over the last year, not to mention Uber and Airbnb.

The first case report on Copernicus Sentinels’ Products Economic Value: A Case Study of Winter Navigation in the Baltic has just been published at the EARSC website case report – winter navigation in the baltic

We, EARSC and The Green Land, investigated the benefits brought by the use of satellite imagery in supporting winter navigation in the Baltic Sea.

According to our analysis, between €24m and €116m per annum of economic value is being generated in Finland and Sweden thanks to the use of satellite radar images.

To understand the reason of such a large range you should read tge report Copernicus Sentinels’ Products Economic Value: A Case Study of Winter Navigation in the Baltic published on EARSC website

Winter navigation in the Baltic has an outstanding importance for Finnish economy. Satellite radar (SAR) imagery is used to observe ice conditions in the Baltic by Finland and Sweden. With their synoptic view, satellites allow icebreakers to keep sea-lanes (“Motorways of the Sea”) and ports open more effectively. This allows reducing transit times and uncertainties, which in turn has positive impacts on ports operations and down to goods transportation and availability for the local population. Our approach consisted in finding identifiable impacts for each tier of such value chain.

This report is the first of a series of three cases in the frame of the study “Assessing the detailed economic benefits derived from Copernicus Earth Observation (EO) data within selected value chains”, undertaken by EARSC under an assignment from the European Space Agency (ESA).

case report – winter navigation in the baltic final.pdf

Geoff Sawyer, Secretary General of EARSC was a guest of honor at the Copernicus Marine Service User Workshop that took place in Brussels last September 8th 2015.

During the interview he granted, he expressed that among the 75+ EARSC members, a lot of companies are already using the Copernicus Marine Service and he was expecting their interest to grow as shown in a survey launched between 2012 and 2014 where the number of respondents who declared being interested in CMEMS as the basis for future business doubled.

For Geoff, CMEMS is for to help develop the economy, the industry and to position Europe in the world. 65% of service today is for public sector so the other opportunity to grow the other segments in commercial area, other industries, export, and potentially citizens is enormous.

To him, we are on a verge of an exciting new era of data explosion where we can see the potential for new markets so he believes that EARSC and Mercator Ocean and CMEMS can work together to design, to improve, to address those new markets, and to build a big benefit for Europe in economy growth and jobs.

Watch the interview of Geoff Sawyer, Secretary General of EARSC https://youtu.be/z5lUuh9wOS4

Source

The 9 edition of Ogeozine has been launched. It brings two interesting success stories on
Surface Deformation MOnitoring with InSAR: In Salah CO2 Storage and Soft ground mapping: Western UAE

Welcome to the third edition of OGEOzine in 2015. Satellite images provide cheap, safe and easy access to our world from the comfort of our offices – important considerations independent of the market conditions, and we will see examples from Africa and the Middle East in this issue.

However it is not the satellite data that is important rather the availability of up-to date geo-information that can be easily used in the decision making process. So next time you are talking to someone about satellites focus on the information they are looking for rather than the beautiful pixels.

OGEOzine (n.9).pdf

Full text (ONLY for subscribers at www.earsc-portal.eu)

Copernicus is a European programme devoted to delivering geo­information for public policy makers throughout the EU. It has a second goal which is to help develop the downstream industry. EARSC (European Association of Remote Sensing Companies) is collecting evidence on the benefits of Copernicus for the 2017 mid­term review through this survey and another which addresses the private sector.

In 2012/2013 EARSC conducted a survey, on behalf of ESA, to map the state and health of the companies providing EO services in Europe. Results can be found at this link http://earsc.org/library (studies). We are updating the survey and shall extend the coverage to understand wider employment in the sector to include public sector organisations (PSB´s) generating or using geospatial information products, dealing with data analysis and re-distribution of EO data throughout Europe.

This survey for Public Sector Bodies aims to complete the information which will help understand the full impact of the programme. Your contribution is really valuable to us and we should appreciate you taking the time to complete the questionnaire for your institution that can be found at
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XYM235W

Attached you could find the pdf questionnaire for supervision.

If you have any questions please contact Mrs. Mónica Miguel-Lago (EARSC executive secretary) secretariat@earsc.org

Introduction to the Survey

A detailed understanding of the Earth Observation sector and the trends is essential to help stakeholders to plan their activities and to assess the effectiveness of their actions. Public sector organizations have a strong interest to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information is available. This will help inform stakeholders on the priorities for future EO value adding activities and pave the way for other stakeholder actions. It will provide critical data to help set budgets for EO research and development.

Active participation by the PSB´s working in Earth Observation is critical to ensure that the survey can meet the objectives of furnishing a sufficiently comprehensive and accurate picture of the current Earth Observation and geo-informaiton status and health. These information will help also to identify priority issues, dominant opportunities, threats and other concerns facing the sector.

We are using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) for transmitting private information via the Internet. It essentially works through a cryptographic system that secures a connection between a client and a server. Many websites use this protocol to obtain confidential user information and it is supported in all modern browsers.

EARSC, the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies is a non-profit-making organization created in 1989. The mission of EARSC is to foster the development of European Geo-Information Service Industry. Our main objective is to stimulate a sustainable market for geo-information services using EO data, which is openly accessible to all members. More information at www.earsc.org

Thank you very much for your active participation,
EARSC secretariat.

PSB Survey final.pdf

We are very pleased to be able to send to you the results coming from the survey we conducted into the state and health of the European EO services industry.

It has been an intensive exercise for us but we are pleased with the results. We are very grateful to all companies that have spent their time responding to our questions. The attached file is the report containing the principal industry statistics.

The survey was conducted between December 2014 and May 2015. A total of 548 companies were contacted with useful responses coming from 152 of them via an on-line questionnaire which was focused on financial and numerical data.

The responses show that the EO services industry is employing over 6800 highly skilled staff and turns over some 900m Euro per annum. These and many more results are explained in the documents.

This is the second survey performed by EARSC. This brochure is a summary of the survey results; and full report will be soon available at EARSC website

We plan to revisit the industry facts and figures every two years. Regular survey will be essential to develop a full understanding of the impact that policy decisions are having on the industry. In the meantime, the results for 2014 follow which we hope you will find interesting, stimulating and helpful in your ventures.

EARSC EO Industry Survey Report

Enhancing the perception and performance of the EO service industry

Recognising a need to structure products and services, EARSC prepared and issued this taxonomy which will help suppliers and users arrive at a common understanding of what can be offered. By proposing a common language, we are certain that this is a living document and comments are welcome as It is very important to note that it should evolve continuously – in the detail

The EO taxonomy proposed address the products and services from two perspectives:

(i) A market segmentation providing a tool to help classify and understand the markets for EO services as well as to define the type of customer. The market view includes definitions of the likely organisations included in each sector and the list of EO services which are considered relevant. The market is broken down into 6 major segments: managed living resources, energy and natural resources, industrial, services, public authorities and international bodies.

As a result of the work on the Earth Observation and the Oil and Gas (EO4OG) community we have a first comprehensive view of the challenges faced by a market sector for which EO technology can be a solution.

The EO4OG challenges reflect the requirements of the O&G industry. They have been organised into 7 groups; 2 for off-shore and 5 for on-shore challenges. Each challenge maps to one or more EO products which are able to meet or partially meet it. The full list of those EO products can be found under the O&G sector of the market taxonomy.

EO4OG hasidentified a total of 224 challenges faced by the O&G industry where there is a potential for satellite EO data to play a role in providing a solution. This led to the definition of 94 products.

Each product describes requirements, spatial esolution, spatial coverage, temporal resolution, … etc

Finally 19 cases or examples showing where some of these products have been successfully applied with the O&G industry

We hope to expand on this in the future but for the moment we only have this breakdown for the Oil and Gas market sector.

(ii) A thematic segmentation provides a tool to help describe and classify the products that are offered by the service providers. This thematic taxonomy starts with the major thematic areas of which there are 6 (land services, built environment & human factors, ocean & marine, atmosphere & climate, disaster & geohazards, security). Each of these is broken down into a number of thematic segments giving 25 in total. For each segment, a number of EO services are identified for which key-words are given which help define the products which can be part of an EO service

All the information is public available under our WIKI under requested credentials.

A Taxonomy for the EO Services Market issue 2.pdf

The EARSC competition “European EO product of the year” will encourage the use of open data from GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems)

European Earth observation companies understand how important it is to be creative, innovative, and inventive in order to react to the rapid evolution in the sector. The exponential increase in data available from all sources promises radical change and the EARSC industry competition will recognize this. For the first year, under the umbrella of the EU Framework Program for Research and Innovation ConnectinGEO project, it will reward a company which has developed the most innovative product integrating an element of open data ideally discoverable through the GEOSS broker services.

Companies are invited to show their interest before 27th November 2015 to secretariat@earsc.org. During the 1st week of December a first WEBEX will be organized where companies may be briefed on which types of data are available through the GEOSSGCI Factsheet (Recipe) and making use of the GEOSS Discover Access Broker (Search & Discovery API). Partners in the ConnectinGEO H2020 project will inform via WEBEX to potential entrants on the possibilities which are presented.

The competition will run over a 6 month period (December 2015-May 2016) during which time they may adapt an existing product, develop a new product or simply promote one they have already in their catalogue. Companies will be asked to provide a short summary of the results (Report should not exceed 2 pages) which will be used as statement for the jury.

This year’s award will be announced during the EARSC annual cocktail where the winner of the EARSC “European Earth Observation company of the year” is also revealed.

Criteria: eligibility requirements & metrics

  • Any commercial product integrating an element of open data resources (ideally data discoverable by GEOSS Discover Access Broker). Note: Copernicus data is eligible.
    Report on the findings (not exceed 2 pages)
  • Explain what type of innovation product the company offers using open data and the degree to which the product depends on the open data
  • Describe the challenge: What problem this product will solve/what solution will this provide? Companies should explain the circumstances surrounding the development of this new product
  • Expected impact and clients to address

Timing

  • Interest: 27th November 2015
  • 1st WEBEX: 1st week December 2015
  • Intermediate WEBEX: guiding the companies in February 2016
  • Dead-line entries: 15th May 2016
  • Selection: the files will be judged by the jury to select the overall product winner (Period May15th-May 31st)
  • Announcement: EARSC cocktail late June 2016 in Brussels

EARSC European Product Award.pdf

(17th June 2015, Brussels). Each year, EARSC organizes a workshop alongside its General assembly meeting. As the association published several position papers and made numerous presentations explaining its concern about adequate industrial participation in the supply of Copernicus services, this year’s workshop focused on “Working together on Copernicus”.

The workshop aimed at fostering the dialogue between all the European Entrusted Entities (EEE’s) and the European private sector. The objective was to find a way forward for industry and the EEE’s to maximize the exploitation of Copernicus Services.

Around 50 people from the private sector, EC and representatives of each of the 7 EEE’s joined the discussion.

EARSC workshop Procuring Copernicus Services-a public-private effort (17June2015, Brussels) final.pdf