Urban Sky’s aerial intelligence. Photo: Urban Sky

Urban Sky closed a $30 million Series B investment round to develop and commercialize a suite of products that leverage the stratosphere for military and commercial applications, the company announced Feb. 7.

The funding round was led by Altos Ventures, with participation from New Legacy Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, Catapult Ventures, Lavrock Ventures, New Stack Ventures, TenOneTen, DA Ventures, Union Labs VC and Techstars.

The company’s technology includes high-altitude balloons, custom stratospheric payloads, control software, and AI-derived forecasting and autonomous flight control systems. These technologies aim to enable high-resolution, data monitoring for commercial applications such as disaster response.

Urban Sky has already commercialized the Microballoon, which can operate in the stratosphere at altitudes above 60,000 feet for multiple days. Recently, Urban Sky demonstrated its “Hot Spot” system, developed in partnership with NASA and the Air Force, during the Palisades Fire in California. Hot Spot is designed to provide real-time, high-resolution wildfire monitoring using long-wave infrared imaging and satellite connectivity.

Alex Wong, partner at New Legacy Ventures and Urban Sky board member, commented: “We have a strong conviction that this Series B financing will enable an exponential expansion of valuable data and insights from the stratosphere, where Urban Sky is positioned as an industry leader.”