ICEYE specialists inspecting one of the company’s SAR satellites in a clean room. Photo: ICEYE

ICEYE specialists inspecting one of the company’s SAR satellites in a clean room. Photo: ICEYE

ICEYE, a Finnish “new space” company, has opened an office in Luxembourg, including a machine learning centre.

ICEYE operates a network of 14 microsatellites, aiming to expand its constellation to 18 next year. The company provides Earth observation data, for example for the insurance industry and the maritime sector.

“We are thrilled to be opening our new office in the beautiful city of Luxembourg,” said Steven Scheers, Chief People & Culture Officer at ICEYE, in a statement. “Our aim is to attract the best talent in the world for our increasingly growing company. Having an increased footprint, right in the center of Europe, will play a pivotal role in helping ICEYE attract the best available opportunities from a talent pool perspective.”

Five people are expected to work at the Luxembourg site by the end of the year, a spokesperson told Delano.

The Luxembourg Future Fund has been an investor in ICEYE since December 2019 and participated in the company’s Series C investment round.

“ICEYE’s decision to open their next European office in Luxembourg affirms that the country has successfully positioned itself as a hub for the growing space & satellite sector,” said Patrick Nickels, chairman of state lender SNCI, which set up the future fund.

Around 70 space companies have opened office in Luxembourg following the launch of the Spaceresources.lu initiative in 2016.

ICEYE has also received funding from Luxembourg-based private equity firm Newspace Capital as well as various EU funding mechanisms. The company’s global headquarter is located in Espoo, Finland, with further offices in Poland, Spain, the UK and the US.

The Luxembourg site will include a machine learning centre of excellence, where ICEYE will look to “explore, develop, and lead its advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence for synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) and earth observation technologies,” the company said in a statement.

“Advancing what machine learning, computer vision and AI really mean for SAR technology, we’ll be able to focus and develop our research capabilities surrounding our existing use cases for natural catastrophes and deforestation while also exploring future solutions for our customers,” said Abdullah Almaksour, machine learning team lead at ICEYE.

The firm’s office is located on Boulevard Royal at the Spaces co-working building.