Earth data is one of the most powerful but underutilized resources on the planet. Satellites generate more than 100 terabytes of imagery every day, yet turning that data into usable insights is costly, complex, and accessible to only a handful of experts. Answering even basic questions like how wildfire firebreaks have shifted, or whether farmland is being encroached upon, can require custom datasets, teams of GIS specialists, and six-figure budgets.
With increasing climate risks and intensifying natural disasters, geospatial data and modeling are critical to improving resiliency for communities and habitats alike. LGND is solving this problem by creating a foundational geospatial intelligence layer for AI. The company transforms messy Earth data into searchable embeddings that can be queried as easily as text. Instead of bespoke pipelines and retraining models for every use case, analysts and developers can instantly build applications on top of LGND’s infrastructure spanning government, insurance, supply chain, agriculture, climate resilience, and real estate.
MCJ is proud to back Nat Manning and the entire LGND team in the company’s $9M Seed round led by Javelin Venture Partners, with participation from AENU, Space Capital, Overture, Ridgeline, Coalition Operators, Clocktower Ventures, and more.
What is LGND?
LGND is building the infrastructure that makes Earth data usable at scale. At the core of the platform is a geospatial foundation model that takes in raw inputs such as satellite imagery, GIS files, and environmental datasets, and transforms them into embeddings, a compact and AI-ready format that captures relationships across space and time.
These embeddings are then organized in a vector database, making it possible to search and analyze Earth data as easily as typing a query. Instead of commissioning bespoke models or waiting months for custom pipelines, organizations can instantly ask place- and time-specific questions—like tracking how wildfire firebreaks have shifted, measuring deforestation over time, or monitoring supply chain assets against flooding risks.
LGND delivers this capability through both a no-code enterprise app and a developer API, enabling everyone from analysts to engineers to build applications on top of the same intelligence layer.
We believe LGND’s result is a step-change: turning what used to be one-off, six-figure projects into scalable, repeatable workflows that can inform decisions in real-time. Insurers can assess climate risk, logistics companies can optimize supply chains against environmental threats, governments can accelerate disaster response, and investors can evaluate physical asset exposure at a global scale. By transforming Earth into a searchable layer of intelligence, LGND moves geospatial data from a niche specialty to a foundational tool for climate resilience and economic decision-making.
Why Did We Invest?
MCJ bets on founders with a proven track record in building and scaling companies, and the folks behind LGND are no different.
Nat Manning, Co-founder and CEO, is the former founder of Kettle, an AI-driven reinsurance platform for properties exposed to climate disasters. He was named to the TIME100 Most Influential People in AI in 2023. Earlier, he served as Chief Data Officer at USAID and CEO of Ushahidi, where he scaled the world’s largest open-source crisis response platform. As a longtime builder and investor at the intersection of AI, climate, and resilience, Nat brings a rare mix of technical depth, policy experience, and entrepreneurial track record to LGND.
LGND’s Co-founder and Chief Scientist, Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño, previously co-founded and led Clay, the leading open-source AI for Earth initiative. Before that, he launched Microsoft’s Planetary Computer to expand global access to environmental data, served as Chief Scientist at Mapbox, and directed data projects at the World Bank. The author of Impact Science and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Bruno brings unmatched expertise in applying AI and data to global environmental challenges.
Dan Hammer is the Co-founder and chief product officer at LGND. He is also a Co-founder of Clay and Ode. Dan has worked across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, with experience at The White House, NASA, Google X, National Geographic, XPRIZE, and the World Resources Institute. He received the inaugural Pritzker Environmental Genius Award and holds a Ph.D. in environmental economics from UC Berkeley.
In addition to backing an impressive founding team, we believe LGND is building essential infrastructure for our modern world and mounting threats. Billion-dollar climate disasters in the U.S. have increased more than 8× since the 1980s, and utilities are now raising resilience spending by double digits each year. In that context, we see LGND as a critical enabler of infrastructure resilience, giving decision-makers the tools to anticipate and adapt to accelerating climate risk.
Additional Resources
Exclusive: LGND wants to make ChatGPT for the Earth [Tech Crunch]