Understory

What Understory does

Understory (legal entity: Comon Solutions LLC) is a geospatial SaaS company that applies machine learning to species-level vegetation analysis from drone and satellite imagery. The company's product, NatMap, consists of two modules — Ecosystem Composition, which identifies and maps plant species across a site, and Tracking Changes, which monitors vegetation change over time. The ML pipeline processes RGB, multispectral, and hyperspectral imagery and is trained on data labeled through a crowdsourced annotation system; Understory discloses 87.5% species-identification accuracy at 2cm resolution across 40+ species on 20 acres of ground-truthed terrain. Customers named in public materials include Clearwater Aquarium, Blue Forest Conservation, and Elkhorn Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve — all conservation NGOs or government entities — and the company is also positioning the platform for adjacent use cases in carbon credit validation.

Understory's business model is a SaaS subscription delivered via a self-serve beta program with a 'Request a Demo' sales overlay, suggesting a hybrid product-led and direct-sales GTM motion rather than a fully self-serve marketplace. The company is incorporated as Comon Solutions LLC, was founded in 2020, and is headquartered in Pacific Grove, California, with distributed team members in Denver and Paris. The company has raised a cumulative $1.25M in non-dilutive funding across two NSF SBIR grants ($250K Phase I in June 2021 and $1M Phase II in April 2023); no priced equity round has been disclosed. Co-founders Ross Davison (CEO) and Chris Knight (COO, Stanford PhD) lead the company, with engineering staff holding PhDs from MIT and the Sorbonne.

The customer base is concentrated in the conservation and environmental-monitoring vertical, with government research reserves, public aquariums, and NGOs as the primary buyer profiles. Geographic footprint is currently US-anchored with a Paris presence that points to early European expansion intent, particularly relevant given Europe's leadership in carbon and biodiversity regulation. The platform supports the full hardware stack from drone to satellite, expanding the addressable customer beyond any single sensor vendor.

Name

Understory

Legal name

Comon Solutions LLC

Website

https://understory.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Understory is a geospatial SaaS company that uses proprietary machine learning to deliver species-level vegetation identification and change monitoring from drone and satellite imagery, primarily serving conservation NGOs, government research reserves, and emerging carbon credit validation customers.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Environmental Geospatial Analytics

NAICS

Support Activities for Forestry (1153)

SIC

Agricultural Services (700)

akta.pro primary industry

Remote Sensing & Earth Observation Analytics (Satellite/UAV/LiDAR, Image Processing) (EUAHAKAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Forest Inventory, Mapping & Monitoring (GIS/Remote Sensing/MRV) (IMAMAJAB), Drone/UAV Data Capture & Processing Software (AFAAAFAH), Timberland GIS, Remote Sensing & Data Analytics (AFAMAKAG), Field Mapping, GIS & Remote Sensing Analytics (AFAAAFAB)

Keywords

• Geospatial analytics software
• Vegetation mapping platform
• Biodiversity monitoring tools
• Carbon credit verification
• Environmental monitoring software

Headquarters

HQ city

Pacific Grove

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Vegetation Mapping Software Subscription: SaaS-based vegetation analysis and mapping service delivered through NatMap platform. Customers receive vegetation composition maps, customized reports, and access to the online platform for tracking ecosystem changes over time. Revenue likely derives from per-project or subscription-based pricing for processing and analysis services.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Understory develops vegetation analysis software that uses machine learning to process drone and satellite imagery (RGB, multispectral, and hyperspectral) for species-level vegetation identification and biomass quantification. Its NatMap SaaS platform delivers ecosystem composition mapping and longitudinal change tracking for environmental monitoring, habitat conservation, climate risk assessment, and carbon credit validation. Customers receive vegetation composition maps, customized reports, and online collaboration tools for tracking ecosystem changes over time.

Product overview

Understory offers NatMap as its core vegetation analysis platform, a unified software solution for monitoring and quantifying landscape changes. NatMap comprises two integrated modules: Ecosystem Composition for species-level biodiversity and biomass quantification, and Tracking Changes for longitudinal monitoring of ecosystem fluctuations over time. The platform processes drone and satellite imagery through machine learning to deliver actionable environmental metrics for land management, habitat conservation, climate risk assessment, and carbon credit validation.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• NatMap: Vegetation mapping platform that tracks and verifies changes to ecosystems using drone and satellite imagery to identify vegetation down to species level
• Tracking Changes
• Ecosystem Composition

Products and services

• NatMap

Quantifiable outcome

• 87.5% accuracy in species-level vegetation identification
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability3 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Blue Forest ConservationcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBlue Forest Conservation partnered with Understory to validate carbon sequestration capabilities at the Doty Ravine river wetland restoration site in California's central valley. Understory quantified additional growth by species type with 87.5% accuracy at 2cm resolution to support carbon credit validation. This represents a core use case demonstrating species-level carbon credit verification capabilities.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Sylvera: Sylvera applies satellite and ML to rate and verify nature-based carbon credits. Overlaps with Understory's carbon credit validation vertical and uses similar remote-sensing + ML architecture for forest and vegetation monitoring.
• Overstory: Overstory applies satellite and AI analytics to vegetation monitoring for utilities and land managers, often at species or asset level. Directly comparable to Understory's NatMap in operating model (imagery + ML for vegetation intelligence) and overlaps on conservation and land management use cases.
• Pachama: Pachama uses satellite imagery and ML to verify forest carbon projects. Comparable to Understory's carbon credit validation use case via Blue Forest Conservation and direct overlap in vegetation-based carbon MRV.
• Descartes Labs: Descartes Labs provides geospatial analytics using satellite imagery and ML for agriculture, forestry, and sustainability use cases. Closely comparable to Understory's imagery-processing core and serves overlapping environmental and conservation customers.
• LiveEO: LiveEO delivers satellite-based environmental monitoring for vegetation, infrastructure, and ESG. Directly comparable to Understory's NatMap in imagery processing, vegetation classification, and sustainability monitoring.
• NCX (Natural Capital Exchange): NCX quantifies forest carbon and biodiversity with remote sensing and ML for forest owners and carbon buyers. Overlaps with Understory's forestry and carbon credit validation use cases and uses similar species- and biomass-level vegetation analytics.

Broad incumbents

• Planet Labs: Planet operates a large satellite constellation with ML-based analytics for agriculture, forestry, and environmental monitoring. A broader incumbent that provides the underlying imagery layer and competes for vegetation monitoring buying centers.
• Maxar Technologies: Maxar provides high-resolution satellite imagery and geospatial analytics serving defense, environmental, and commercial customers. Broad incumbent that competes in the same remote sensing + environmental monitoring category.
• Kayrros: Kayrros applies geospatial and environmental intelligence to monitor forests, biomass, and emissions. Comparable to Understory in environmental remote sensing and in carbon/biomass quantification use cases.

Emerging players

• Salus Coop / AI Forest: AI Forest and Salus Coop use ML on satellite imagery to monitor forest health and biodiversity. Early-stage European player with partial overlap in vegetation/forest monitoring analytics.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/understory-ai

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors1 record

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Understory