SAN FRANCISCO – While working in finance years ago, Yasunori Yamazaki traveled to mines to conduct due diligence. Later, as Axelspace chief business officer and Astroscale head of brand management, he considered how satellites could simplify the task.
As a result, one of the first products being developed by his new company Singapore-based Liberatech Space, is Earth-observation and analysis for mining-sector investors.
Yamazaki co-founded Liberatech in 2024 with Tom James, co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based Tradeflow Capital Management, to use satellite data to address challenges in the commodity, energy and environmental industries.
“The company utilizes space technology, primarily satellite-imagery data, to create products and services directly for the user,” Yamazaki, who serves as Liberatech CEO and chief marketing officer, told SpaceNews.
Custom products
To date, Liberatech has focused primarily on the finance sector. Instead of developing one-size-fits-all products, “we have been speaking to potential clients to understand the optimal product and services that will fit well with them,” Yamazaki said.
Liberatech is working with Kongsberg Satellite Services of Norway. The strategic partnership announced June 10 was forged to marry KSAT’s extensive Earth observation and communications infrastructure with Liberatech’s artificial intelligence-enhanced analytics.
KSAT joined forces with Liberatech because “what Yasu and Liberatech want to achieve fits very well with our mindset about bringing a wide portfolio of analyzed data to the clients on a very short timeline,” said Borre Pedersen, KSAT Earth observation sales director.
In addition to operating a global ground station network, KSAT is known for collecting and sharing Earth-observation data products related to vessel tracking, oil and gas operations, and environmental monitoring.
“We can do the analytics and processing,” Pedersen said. “Then Liberatech will integrate in our value-adding products to create solutions for clients.”
For example, KSAT has expertise in combining synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data with other types of Earth imagery to “reveal details that are not visible to human eye,” Pedersen said.
For the mining sector, combining Yamazaki’s experience with KSAT’s decades of experience with SAR, “will create a very powerful solution that will help the owners and the investors to going forward,” Pedersen said.
