OceanDataLab
OceanDataLab is a French private research laboratory that builds open-source software — SEAScope, Syntool, and the ESA-funded Ocean Virtual Laboratory portal — for visualizing and jointly analyzing co-located satellite, in-situ, and model oceanographic data, serving oceanographers and Earth Observation researchers globally.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2013
- HeadquartersLoc-maria-plouzané, France
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What OceanDataLab does
OceanDataLab is a private French research laboratory established in 2013 in Locmaria Plouzané, France, that develops specialized open-source software for visualizing and analyzing oceanographic Earth Observation data. Its three core products are SEAScope, a standalone 3D desktop application that renders satellite, in-situ, and numerical model data on a globe modeled as a sphere to avoid projection issues; Syntool, an open-source AGPLv3 web viewer; and the Ocean Virtual Laboratory (OVL), a web portal funded by ESA that provides searchable access to approximately 512 TiB of multi-sensor ocean data across 300 products. Supporting products include Pi-MEP (data matching), SARoNG (SAR processing), and SEAShot (a beta sharing platform for annotated screenshots and animations), along with an optional Python package (pySEAScope) for remote control, scripted animations, and Jupyter notebook integration, and an IDF data format based on NetCDF-4 with an idf-converter utility.
The company serves oceanographers, marine scientists, and earth-observation researchers who need to jointly analyze co-located satellite, in-situ, and model datasets to detect synergies across data sources. Its primary scientific anchor is a long-standing collaboration with IFREMER's Space Oceanography Laboratory, and its principal institutional sponsor is the European Space Agency, through the ESA SEOM program and the ESA Network of Resources Initiative.
OceanDataLab's revenue model is professional services and grant-based rather than product-based: all software is provided free of charge under open-source licenses, and the company generates income from research contracts, ESA funding, and development partnerships. Go-to-market is product-led and community-led, relying on direct downloads, GitHub discussions, a quarterly newsletter, YouTube tutorials, and presence at ESA events such as the Living Planet Symposium and the Ocean Training Courses. The 11-50 employee organization operates globally in terms of software reach, but is concentrated institutionally on European space-agency and French public-sector research funding.
OceanDataLab firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- OceanDataLab
- Legal name
- OceanDataLab
- Website
- https://oceandatalab.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2013
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- OceanDataLab is a French private research laboratory that builds open-source software — SEAScope, Syntool, and the ESA-funded Ocean Virtual Laboratory portal — for visualizing and jointly analyzing co-located satellite, in-situ, and model oceanographic data, serving oceanographers and Earth Observation researchers globally.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
OceanDataLab industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Oceanographic Data Visualization Software
- NAICS
- Software Publishers (513210), Search, Detection, Navigation, Guidance, Aeronautical, and Nautical System and Instrument Manufacturing (334511), Geophysical Surveying and Mapping Services (541360)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Marine Sensors, Instrumentation & IoT (Condition Monitoring) (IMAJAJAI)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Nautical Safety, Navigation Aids & Hydrographic Services (TLAHAFAE)
Keywords
Where OceanDataLab is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Loc-maria-plouzané
- HQ country
- France
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices1 record
Markets served
OceanDataLab business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Research and Development Services: OceanDataLab operates as a private research laboratory established in 2013. The company generates value through scientific collaboration with IFREMER's Space Oceanography Laboratory. Revenue appears to come from research contracts, ESA funding, and development partnerships rather than product sales, as all software is provided free of charge under open-source licenses.
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels7 records
OceanDataLab product offering
Product offeringCore offering
OceanDataLab develops open-source software for visualizing and analyzing oceanographic data, including satellite observations, in-situ measurements, and numerical model outputs. Its core offerings are SEAScope, a 3D globe-based desktop viewer; Syntool, an open-source web viewer; and the Ocean Virtual Laboratory (OVL) web portal, which provides searchable access to approximately 512 TiB of Earth Observation data across 300 products.
Product overview
OceanDataLab provides a suite of oceanographic data visualization and analysis tools. The core products are SEAScope (standalone 3D desktop application), Ocean Virtual Laboratory (OVL, web-based portal), and Syntool (open source web viewer powering OVL). SEAScope renders satellite, in-situ, and model data on a 3D globe with advanced visualization capabilities, while OVL provides web-based access to approximately 512 TiB of EO data with 300+ products. Additional products include Pi-MEP (data matching platform), SARoNG (SAR processing), and SEAShot (sharing platform). The ecosystem includes Python bindings for automation and scripting, IDF data format for standardized Earth Observation data, and idf-converter for data conversion.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Syntool: Open source web viewer for satellite, model and in-situ data developed by OceanDataLab.
- SEAScope
- OVL (Ocean Virtual Laboratory)
- Pi-MEP
- SARoNG
- SEAShot
Products and services
- SEAScope A standalone 3D visualization and analysis application for satellite, in-situ, and numerical model data. Models the Earth as a sphere to avoid projection issues, displays data worldwide, and offers advanced rendering for detecting synergies between observation and simulation sources. Licensed under GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL v3). Targets oceanographers and marine scientists.
- Syntool An open-source web viewer for satellite, model, and in-situ data. Powers the Ocean Virtual Laboratory (OVL) portal and other OVL-based portals. Licensed under GNU Affero General Public License (AGPLv3).
- Ocean Virtual Laboratory (OVL) A virtual web-based platform that lets oceanographers discover and jointly handle co-located Earth Observation datasets and related model/in-situ datasets over dedicated regions of interest. Provides searchable catalog of 300+ data products with approximately 512 TiB of data accessible.
- Pi-MEP A platform for data matching and evaluation that is part of the OceanDataLab product ecosystem.
- SARoNG A product within the OceanDataLab ecosystem related to SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) data processing.
- SEAShot A sharing platform for creating and sharing SEAScope screenshots and animations via shareable URLs. Currently in beta and used to generate preview images or animations from OVL portal annotations.
Quantifiable outcome
- 512 TiB of ocean data accessible through OVL Portal with 300 products in catalog
- +1 more outcomes
Companies that use OceanDataLab
Customer profileNamed customers2 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
OceanDataLab technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability3 records
Feature7 records
OceanDataLab partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- IFREMER (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea)coreOceanDataLab was established in 2013 by long-time Ocean Remote Sensing and IT experts working in close collaboration with the Space Oceanography Laboratory at IFREMER. This collaboration provides scientific expertise and domain knowledge essential for product development.
- European Space Agency (ESA)coreOVL portal is funded by ESA and supported by the ESA Network of Resources Initiative (NoR). ESA SEOM previously supported OVL development. ESA provides the primary use case and funding for OceanDataLab tools. Tools were used during ESA Ocean Training Courses and demonstrated at ESA Living Planet Symposium.
- ESA SEOM (Scientific Exhibition of Oceanography)coreIn 2014, OceanDataLab took lead for developing the Ocean Virtual Laboratory (OVL), an activity supported by ESA SEOM to build a platform focused on exploiting synergy between Sentinel instruments and other Earth Observation datasets together with in-situ measurements.
Scale indicators8 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
OceanDataLab competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- QGIS: Open-source desktop GIS with extensive ocean and earth observation plugins. Comparable as a free, open-source geospatial visualization tool used by environmental researchers, though 2D-focused versus SEAScope's 3D globe approach.
- ESRI ArcGIS Pro: Industry-leading commercial GIS platform with extensive geospatial visualization and 3D globe capabilities. Competes for the same earth science and oceanographic visualization use cases, but with a much broader geographic information system focus and commercial licensing model.
- Copernicus Marine Service: EU-funded operational marine data portal providing ocean state information, forecasts, and reanalysis. Overlaps with OVL's role as an oceanographic data access and visualization layer, but is EU-programmatic at much larger scale and covers a wider ocean monitoring mandate.
- NASA Worldview: NASA's free, interactive satellite data visualization tool providing near real-time imagery from multiple EO missions. Comparable to OVL as a free, web-based EO visualization portal, though broader in scope (atmosphere + land + ocean) and backed by NASA's full Earthdata archive.
- Google Earth Engine: Google's petabyte-scale geospatial analysis platform with extensive ocean and atmospheric datasets. Overlaps with OVL/SEAScope for multi-sensor visualization and analysis, but targets broader earth science and is backed by Google Cloud infrastructure.
Others
- Hyrax (OPeNDAP): Open-source data server technology for earth science datasets used by NASA, NOAA, and academic institutions. Functions as enabling infrastructure for ocean data distribution, complementary to OceanDataLab's visualization layer on top of similar data sources.
Emerging players
- Pytroll: Open-source Python-based community for real-time satellite data processing and visualization. Overlaps with SEAScope's Python-bindings and Jupyter-notebook workflow, though Pytroll focuses on meteorological/satellite data pipelines rather than oceanographic visualization.
Direct peers
- AVISO+: CNES-operated French altimetry data portal specializing in satellite-derived sea surface height, currents, and ocean dynamics. Highly comparable to OVL's multi-sensor ocean focus and shares the French marine EO ecosystem with OceanDataLab.
- SNAP (ESA Sentinel Application Platform): ESA's official toolbox for Sentinel satellite data processing, visualization, and analysis. Directly comparable as a free ESA-aligned tool for processing Sentinel-1/2/3 data, with overlapping user base of European ocean and land remote sensing scientists.
- NASA Giovanni: NASA's web-based tool for visualizing and analyzing geophysical parameters from satellite and model data. Comparable to OVL as a free online portal for oceanographic and atmospheric data visualization targeted at scientific researchers.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
OceanDataLab social profiles
Digital presenceOceanDataLab financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
OceanDataLab leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles2 records
OceanDataLab funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
OceanDataLab M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about OceanDataLab
What does OceanDataLab do?
OceanDataLab develops open-source software for visualizing and analyzing oceanographic data, including satellite observations, in-situ measurements, and numerical model outputs. Its core offerings are SEAScope, a 3D globe-based desktop viewer; Syntool, an open-source web viewer; and the Ocean Virtual Laboratory (OVL) web portal, which provides searchable access to approximately 512 TiB of Earth Observation data across 300 products.
Is OceanDataLab a public or private company?
OceanDataLab is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was OceanDataLab founded?
OceanDataLab was founded in 2013. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is OceanDataLab based?
OceanDataLab is headquartered in Loc-maria-plouzané, France, in the Europe region.
How does OceanDataLab make money?
One revenue line is on record: research and Development Services.
Who are OceanDataLab's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are QGIS, ESRI ArcGIS Pro, Copernicus Marine Service, NASA Worldview and Google Earth Engine. Hyrax (OPeNDAP) is listed as an others. Pytroll is listed as an emerging player. Direct peers are AVISO+, SNAP (ESA Sentinel Application Platform) and NASA Giovanni.
Does OceanDataLab have an API?
Yes. SEAScope Python bindings allow users to control the viewer remotely, transfer data between Python and SEAScope, create scripted animations, and stream data from Python console. The Python package (pySEAScope) provides bindings using FlatBuffers for serialization and stream sockets for communication, enabling remote control over TCP/IP networks. Available via pip install pySEAScope, with optional processor component for data extraction to PNG images or Numpy arrays. Developer documentation is at seascope.oceandatalab.com/python_api/index.html.
What industry is OceanDataLab in?
OceanDataLab's product category is Oceanographic Data Visualization Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is IMAJAJAI, Marine Sensors, Instrumentation & IoT (Condition Monitoring), with a secondary code of TLAHAFAE, Nautical Safety, Navigation Aids & Hydrographic Services. Its NAICS code is 513210 and its SIC code is 7372.