Why Climate-Tech Startup Satellites on Fire's Shocking $2.7M Funding Could Change Everything—Don't Miss Out!

Satellites on Fire, an innovative climate-tech startup based in Argentina, has successfully closed a seed funding round of $2.7 million, led by Dalus Capital. This significant financial backing comes from a consortium of investors, including Draper Associates, Draper Cygnus, VitaminC, Savia Ventures, Avesta Fund, Reciprocal, Zenani Capital, Innventure, Air Capital, Gain VC, Antom VC, and Embarca Tech. Founded in 2020 as a school project by three teenagers—Franco Rodriguez Viau, Ulises López Pacholczak, and Joaquín Chamo—the company has evolved into a robust platform aimed at revolutionizing wildfire detection.

Initially inspired by a personal tragedy where family friends lost their homes to wildfires in Córdoba, the young founders sought to create a solution that could aid in faster fire detection. After interviewing more than 80 firefighters and emergency responders, they identified shortcomings in their initial software version and rebuilt it from the ground up. Today, Rodriguez Viau, now 22 and serving as the CEO, has been recognized by MIT Technology Review’s Spanish edition as one of its 35 Innovators Under 35 for Latin America in 2025.

The platform developed by Satellites on Fire utilizes artificial intelligence to integrate satellite imagery, tower cameras, and fire propagation models, generating real-time alerts. Impressively, their system detects fires an average of 35 minutes earlier than the well-known NASA FIRMS service. NASA's system relies on a limited number of satellites, which can create gaps in coverage, especially over vast areas like Latin America. Conversely, Satellites on Fire aggregates data from over eight satellites, including contributions from NASA, NOAA, and the European Space Agency, with updates as frequent as every five minutes.

The company highlights a documented case in Argentina reported by Newsweek in November 2025, where the platform detected a fire at 1:40 a.m.—a staggering seven hours before NASA issued its alert. This early detection can be crucial for effective containment efforts.

Satellites on Fire operates on a software-as-a-service model, with pricing ranging from $0.02 to $10 per hectare annually. Currently, their platform monitors territories across 21 countries on four continents, catering to over 55,000 users. The company boasts a training dataset of over 20,000 field-validated fire reports, making it the largest of its kind in Latin America. In 2025 alone, the system was involved in the response to more than 600 wildfires, serving a diverse client base, including forestry companies, agricultural enterprises, energy utilities, carbon credit projects, insurers, and government agencies. Notably, Aon has integrated the platform into all its forestry insurance policies across Latin America to aid in risk calculation and premium pricing.

The recent funding round will facilitate Satellites on Fire’s expansion into the United States, where they are already running pilot programs and collaborating with Watch Duty, a nonprofit wildfire tracking platform. The funding will also be allocated to optimizing AI models, launching a parametric wildfire insurance product in partnership with Aon, and developing an intelligence dashboard for enhanced client protection planning. Looking to the future, Rodriguez Viau has expressed intentions to venture into suppression technology, including drone deployment.

With wildfires costing the U.S. hundreds of billions annually, and heightened awareness following the devastating 2025 Los Angeles fires, the demand for effective detection and prevention technology is more pressing than ever. John Mills, CEO of Watch Duty and an advisor to Satellites on Fire, remarked that the platform's results have “genuinely astounded” his team. Diego Serebrisky, co-founder and managing partner at Dalus Capital, framed the funding round as a testament to the capacity of Latin American entrepreneurs to develop globally competitive AI solutions in climate technology.

Previously, Satellites on Fire garnered $250,000 in funding from Tim Draper and Adam Draper after their appearance on Meet the Drapers Season 9, alongside recognition from the UN and support from esteemed institutions such as MIT and Cornell University.