Satellite imagery has become so advanced that tire tracks in snow, for example, can now be photographed in high resolution from hundreds of miles above the Earth's surface. It was such a photo that led to an epiphany for Derek Tishler, the founder and CEO of Melbourne-based BoxMica, a "space intelligence startup," as he describes it.
"Our tagline is 'intelligence as a service,'" says Tishler, who studied physics at the University of Central Florida. "We look at satellite imagery, using the top commercial providers who build great satellites ... we purchase data from those folks. We go and take pictures all over the world. Then we turn that information into something actionable."
Tishler founded BoxMica in 2021 after dabbling in virtual reality and artificial intelligence. The company, he says, has benefited greatly from being part of Groundswell, a business incubator and co-working space in Melbourne that has nurtured more than 100 startups, helping them land, collectively, more than $200 million in outside capital.
"Our first real revenue took a few years; it was a challenge going from an idea to getting the business started, but last year we grew from four to 15 people," Tishler says, adding that BoxMica began to secure contracts with public and private organizations in 2024 that validated its business model. Although its largest client is the U.S. Department of War, a hedge fund that was heavily invested in the energy sector was BoxMica's first customer.
"Their job was to look at natural gas plants," Tishler says. "They were traders, so they were looking to find an edge through information. We created an early warning system so they could tell when a plant was having some kind of issue ... to see it from space so they could react quicker, because even if you have boots on the ground, you might get information about an incident hours later. Their goal was to reduce that timeline."
BoxMica's insights, Tishler says, can be applied to a wide range of logistical challenges. In the public sector, its reports have been used by military and law enforcement agencies to track the movements of boats suspected to be involved in illegal fishing operations and to locate and monitor secret airstrips in South America used by organizations (e.g., drug cartels) that "might be not doing good things," he says.
The company's reports, Tishler adds, have also been used to help deploy aid to places affected by natural disasters. "Maybe there's a typhoon about to hit somewhere and you need to know what's going to flood before it floods," he says. "If you want to land a plane ... to bring help, it's nice to be able to see that place ahead of time, and we can provide that quickly using our commercial satellite assets."
However, Tishler points out, BoxMica does not provide analyses or assessments, and it does not have security clearances. "We're given only the information we need to know," he says. "The true experts ... take the information we provide sort of like a pre-planning product, then they go and enact missions on the secure side." — By Brian Hartz