What Element 84 does

Element 84 is a privately held, woman-owned small business headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 2013. The firm develops cloud-native geospatial software and provides professional services to federal agencies (notably NASA and NOAA), commercial satellite operators (Ursa Space, EOI Space, Hydrosat), and non-profit organizations (The Nature Conservancy, Headwaters Economics, The Sustainability Consortium), serving three primary customer verticals: Federal Government, Commercial, and Non-Profit. Element 84 combines in-house product development with project-based consulting engagements, scaled materially by its February 2023 acquisition of Azavea.

Element 84's technology stack centers on Earth observation data processing. Core products include FilmDrop, a cloud-native geospatial processing suite for ingesting, archiving, processing, analyzing, and distributing geospatial data in the cloud; GroundWork, an annotation tool for creating ML training datasets from satellite, aerial, and drone imagery; Raster Vision, an open-source deep learning library bridging GIS and computer vision; and Earth Search, a public search and discovery API on the AWS Registry of Open Data covering Landsat, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-1, Copernicus DEM, and NAIP datasets. The firm is a steward of the STAC (SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog) standard and an AWS Partner Network member with Public Safety and Disaster Response competency, deploying AI/ML capabilities across computer vision, NLP, multimodal vision-language modeling, and generative AI for federal Earth science workloads.

Element 84's revenue model is anchored in professional services — strategic geospatial consulting, cloud architecture and data scaling, machine learning engineering, software engineering and analytics, user experience design, and a specialized FinOps practice — delivered as project-based engagements. Open-source products (FilmDrop, GroundWork, Raster Vision) function as lead-generation and ecosystem-buildout assets that feed the consulting pipeline rather than as direct revenue drivers. Distribution is through direct enterprise sales with selective self-serve open-source adoption via GitHub; the firm does not disclose pricing, ARR, or external funding.

Name

Element 84

Legal name

Element 84, Inc.

Website

https://element84.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2013

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Element 84 is a woman-owned geospatial software firm building cloud-native Earth observation processing tools (FilmDrop, GroundWork, Raster Vision, Earth Search) and providing AI/ML, FinOps, and consulting services to federal agencies, commercial satellite operators, and environmental non-profits.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Geospatial Software & Earth Observation Analytics

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821), Web Search Portals and All Other Information Services (51929)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)

akta.pro primary industry

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

akta.pro secondary industries

GIS & Spatial Data Management Platforms (BPAMANAK), Remote Sensing & Geospatial Vision (satellite/drone imagery) (HDAAAEAL)

Keywords

• Cloud-native geospatial processing
• Earth observation software
• Geospatial machine learning
• Satellite data analytics
• Open source GIS tools

Headquarters

HQ city

Alexandria

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Professional Services / Consulting: Element 84 provides strategic geospatial consulting, cloud architecture and data scaling, machine learning expertise, software engineering and analytics, and user experience and design services. Revenue is generated through project-based consulting engagements with federal, commercial, and non-profit clients.
2. Open Source Software Products: The company develops and maintains open source tools including FilmDrop, GroundWork, Raster Vision, and Earth Search. While open source, these products drive consulting engagements and establish market presence.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

Element 84 designs and develops cloud-native geospatial software products and provides professional services for ingesting, archiving, processing, analyzing, and distributing Earth observation and satellite imagery data. The company maintains an open-source ecosystem including FilmDrop (a geospatial processing suite), GroundWork (an annotation tool), Raster Vision (a deep learning framework for satellite imagery), and Earth Search (a public discovery API on AWS), complemented by consulting, machine learning, FinOps, and software engineering services for federal, commercial, and non-profit clients.

Product overview

Element 84 operates as a geospatial technology company offering a portfolio of interconnected products and services. Their core offerings include FilmDrop (cloud-native geospatial processing suite), GroundWork (geospatial annotation tool), Raster Vision (deep learning framework for satellite imagery), and Earth Search (public search API). These products are complemented by professional services including Machine Learning, Software Engineering & Analytics, and FinOps. The company acquired Azavea in February 2023, expanding their capabilities in geospatial and Earth Observation data processing. All offerings are built on cloud-native principles with strong emphasis on open source tools.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• FilmDrop: Cloud-native geospatial processing suite for ingesting, archiving, processing, analyzing and distributing geospatial data in the cloud
• GroundWork
• Raster Vision
• Earth Search

Products and services

• FilmDrop A cloud-native geospatial processing suite of open source tools for ingesting, archiving, processing, analyzing and distributing geospatial data, including satellite imagery, analytics, drones, sensors, and instruments.
• GroundWork An annotation tool designed for geospatial data including satellite, aerial, and drone imagery, supporting object detection, chip classification, and semantic segmentation projects for creating training datasets for machine learning.
• Raster Vision An open source library and framework bridging GIS and deep learning-based computer vision for satellite and aerial imagery, providing tools for semantic segmentation, object detection, and change detection.
• Earth Search

Quantifiable outcome

• Reduced commercial client cloud costs by 32%
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers9 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability12 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

Four partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• AzaveacoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 20 February 2023Element 84 acquired Azavea Inc with legal assistance from Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig. The merger combined both organizations under the Element 84 name as of February 16, 2023, enhancing capabilities in geospatial and Earth Observation data processing, visualization, and analysis.
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)coreTechnology or IntegrationAWS Partner with Public Safety and Disaster Response competency. Earth Search provides public API on AWS Registry of open geospatial datasets including Landsat and Sentinel-2 data.
• Geoscience AustraliacoreTechnology or IntegrationCollaborated with Geoscience Australia to release Sentinel-2 Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF dataset on AWS Open Data containing all 11.4 million scenes.
• CloudFactoryminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership for quality training data and social impact in geospatial data labeling projects.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• Esri: Dominant enterprise GIS platform provider. Comparable because both serve geospatial data users across government and commercial sectors; Esri operates as the broad incumbent while Element 84 is a more specialized, cloud-native alternative.
• Planet Labs: Earth observation satellite operator with its own imagery platform. Comparable as a satellite-data provider using cloud-native pipelines; Element 84 supplies backend tooling (FilmDrop) to similar commercial constellations and competes for adjacent analytics work.
• Maxar Technologies: High-resolution satellite imagery and geospatial intelligence provider serving defense and intelligence. Comparable as an EO analytics incumbent overlapping with Element 84's federal earth-science customer set.

Direct peers

• Descartes Labs: Geospatial analytics platform combining satellite imagery with ML modeling. Comparable because both build cloud-native geospatial ML pipelines for federal and commercial customers; Element 84 differentiates via open-source tooling and STAC standards.
• SkyWatch: Earth observation data marketplace and discovery API provider. Comparable as both build STAC-compatible geospatial discovery infrastructure and monetize access to satellite imagery catalogs.
• Azavea: Geospatial software and analytics firm now operating under Element 84 following the February 2023 acquisition. Pre-acquisition, Azavea was a direct peer in civic/environmental geospatial consulting and the developer of GroundWork.
• Development Seed: Geospatial engineering consultancy known for cloud-native EO tooling and open-source contributions (e.g., to STAC). Highly comparable as a cloud-native geospatial services and open-source peer with overlapping federal and NGO customer base.

Emerging players

• BlackSky: Real-time geospatial intelligence provider combining satellites and analytics. Comparable as a satellite-to-insights platform serving government and commercial markets; smaller and more analytics-focused than Maxar, more directly competitive with Element 84's commercial work.
• Capella Space: SAR satellite operator offering high-resolution imagery and analytics. Comparable as a commercial SAR imagery customer/peer (Element 84's FilmDrop is used by similar operators like Ursa Space).

Others

• Radiant Earth Foundation: Non-profit focused on open geospatial training data and ML benchmarks. Comparable as an open-source / community-driven geospatial ML player; serves an adjacent ecosystem role to Element 84's open-source stack.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/e84news
• GitHubgithub.com/element84
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/element-84
• Facebookfacebook.com/element84

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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

M&A2 records

Investments

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

Frequently asked questions about Element 84