Blackshark.ai

Blackshark.ai, founded in 2020 and headquartered in Graz, Austria, is a geospatial AI company that generates comprehensive 3D digital twins of Earth by processing satellite and aerial imagery at global scale using proprietary deep learning models. The company's core technology automatically detects, classifies, and reconstructs over 1.5 billion buildings, roads, vegetation areas, and terrain features from remote sensing data into semantically rich 3D representations.

Blackshark.ai's platform processes petabytes of imagery through a cloud-based AI pipeline that identifies object boundaries, assigns semantic categories, and reconstructs 3D geometry without manual annotation or photogrammetry at scale. The resulting data layers include building footprints, rooftop structures, tree canopies, land cover classifications, and surface normal vectors — enabling applications in urban planning, insurance risk assessment, telecommunications network design, and autonomous navigation.

A notable customer and technology partnership is with Microsoft for the Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise — Blackshark.ai's global 3D world reconstruction technology underpins the photorealistic rendering of the entire Earth's surface in the simulator, converting satellite imagery into navigable 3D environments with accurate building placement and terrain. This partnership provided revenue scale and technical validation for commercial expansion.

Backed by Microsoft M12 venture fund and Point72 Ventures with approximately $35 million raised, Blackshark.ai has grown to over 100 employees processing imagery from Planet Labs, Airbus, Maxar, and government satellite programs. The company competes with Nearmap, Vexcel Imaging, and Google Maps Platform in the geospatial data market, differentiating through AI automation speed and global coverage breadth over accuracy-focused manual workflows.