The Compression Company, a satellite data compression startup, has raised £2.5 million in a pre-seed round led by Long Journey. It develops software that runs directly onboard satellites to reduce the size of Earth observation data so that more information can be transmitted back to Earth during limited ground-station passes.
Satellites are capturing more Earth observation data than ever, but limited bandwidth means only a fraction makes it back to Earth in time to be useful, resulting in most captured data being delayed, degraded, or discarded. The Compression Company reduces file sizes directly on the satellite without compromising accuracy or usability, allowing operators to transmit more usable data, lower storage and transmission costs, and deliver information faster.
The software applies different levels of compression within each image, heavily compressing lower-value data such as cloud cover while preserving high-value details, such as detected ships in maritime surveillance. As satellites increasingly launch with more onboard compute, the solution can be deployed as software only, without requiring new hardware.
The Compression Company was founded by Michael Stanway and Joe Griffith, who met while studying neurotechnology at Imperial College London. The platform, emerged from Entrepreneurs First, has shipped its first orbital deployment scheduled to go live in Q1 2026, and will use the new funding to expand its engineering team and support further commercial rollouts with satellite operators.
