Around 17 months after the initial proposal to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Business Applications Programme, Earth observation company LiveEO successfully concluded its Demonstration Project, proving the business viability of its solution utilising space technology. ESA’s support to LiveEO throughout the project implementation played a significant role in bringing its product to maturity, lifting its business to the next level and establishing its position as the world leader in satellite augmented infrastructure monitoring.

Demonstration Projects within ESA’s Business Applications Programme have to show clear potential to become sustainable in the post-project phase. To be eligible for funding, proposed projects must include user involvement and contribution, and benefit from the integrated use of one or more space assets. 

LiveEO’s project SIM (Space-Enabled Full-Stack Solution for Infrastructure Monitoring) met these requirements: Utilising satellite data, an infrastructure monitoring platform has been established - in close dialogue with network operators in the verticals electricity, pipeline and railway in the United States and Europe. The solution developed in the course of the project effectively represents LiveEO’s core products on the market today.

Since the implementation’s kick-off, LiveEO’s monitoring solution has brought value to companies both inside and outside the project’s scope. The solution that encompasses vegetation analysis to detect any danger posed by trees to overhead electricity lines and railways, as well as the identification of ground movement and third party influences close to pipelines, has been rolled out to customers around the world.

“There is no question: LiveEO would not fill the market-leading position it has today, had it not been for ESA’s Business Applications Programme,” says Sven Przywarra, Co-Founder of LiveEO, “Aside from the funding, which enabled us to greatly ramp up our engineering team, we found having access to ESA’s network to be invaluable for our business. We are grateful we had the chance to prove how our product can improve people’s lives, using space technology.”

“LiveEO has had an amazing journey throughout the ESA project!  From a small start-up to growing into an established business with a credible service offering, it is well positioned to access the market. This is the result of LiveEO’s technical and business innovation attitude, as well as its truly customer centric approach. It has been a pleasure supporting LiveEO, and I look forward to seeing further developments,”  says Davide Coppola, project manager at ESA Space Solutions. 

About LiveEO

LiveEO is bringing Earth observation to enterprise customers starting in the infrastructure sector. LiveEO utilizes satellite technology to monitor large infrastructure networks globally and empowers the operators to save operational expenses by observing dangers from external threats. By using AI the start-up is generating overviews of thousands of kilometres for decisions on the management level as well as information for the worker on the ground via a front-end and mobile app. LiveEO’s goal is to monitor every major infrastructure grid until 2025. The company has around 50 employees and is headquartered in Berlin, Germany. 

About ESA Space Solutions

ESA Space Solutions is the go-to place for great business ideas involving space in all areas of society and economy. Its mission is to support entrepreneurs in Europe in the development of business using satellite applications and space technology to improve everyday life.

The programme is designed to provide multiple entry points such as ESA Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs), ESA Technology Broker Network, ESA Business Application Ambassadors and the ESA Business Applications programme. We can also support your ideas of transferring space technology into non-space markets or vice versa.

ESA Business Applications is part of ESA Space Solutions that supports the development of sustainable services utilising space assets. It provides funding opportunities and expert support to entrepreneurs.