Date: Sep 21, 2012 Author: Don Seiffert Source: Mass High Tech (
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GeoVantage Inc. in Peabody, which creates aerial imagery for several industries, including Google, has raised $650,000 in equity funding from current investors to help fuel what a company executive calls its "rapid growth" in the past year.
Matthew E. Herring, senior vice president and co-founder of the company, said that besides doing emergency response imagery for use on Google Maps and other general mapping services, the company's main clients include the gas and oil industry, which uses the images to monitor miles of pipeline for safety reasons, and precision agriculture, which uses pictures of acres of farmland to decide where and when to apply fertilizer, for example. Herring said the company's business is fairly evenly split between those three categories.
The company, founded in 1998, has a fleet of about 90 airplanes, and rents out others, and uses sensors and navigation systems that can capture imagery that's accurate to within a meter. It covers areas worldwide, including much of Africa, Australia and Argentina, he said. In 2005, it was bought by Deere & Co., makers of John Deere brand tractors, as part of five or six companies to make up a new unit for that company. That unit disbanded in 2008, and Herring and two partners - CTO James E. Kain and President William Pevear, both co-founders - bought the company back.
Herring did not disclose specific revenue figures, but said the company has doubled revenue in the past year, despite a drought which cut about 30 percent of its sales. During growing season, the company has about 37 plans in the air, and about 15 year-round, he said. The company has 18-20 employees.
The $650,000 investment comes "from one significant private investor who came on in 2003," said Herring, as well as a few other angels. Herring said the majority of the company is still owner by the three founding partners, however.
