Operating CompanyNew Mexico

Descartes Labs

Operating Company · Santa Fe, NM

Satellite-imagery and geospatial-AI analytics company founded by scientists who left Los Alamos National Laboratory to build it; backed by DCVC (Data Collective). Taken private by Antarctica Capital in 2022, then acquired by EarthDaily Analytics in 2024; still operating from its Santa Fe headquarters.

Founded

Region

New Mexico

Investors

People

About New Mexico

New Mexico runs on two national laboratories most of the country only half-remembers exist: Los Alamos, where the first nuclear weapons were designed and where Triad National Security now holds the management contract, and Sandia in Albuquerque, run by Honeywell's NTESS since the contract moved off Lockheed Martin in 2017. Descartes Labs, a satellite-imagery and geospatial-AI company headquartered in Santa Fe, was founded by scientists who left Los Alamos to build it -- the exact same lab-to-company pattern that built San Antonio's cyber cluster and Tampa's CENTCOM-adjacent defense firms, playing out here around physics instead of signals.

Region Stats

Total firms 10

VC / investors 1

Companies 7

Schools 2

Known For

National Labs

Defense

Geospatial AI