OPENSCAPES COLLABORATIVE LTD

What OPENSCAPES COLLABORATIVE LTD does

Openscapes is a grant-funded open-science organization that helps government and research-institution teams adopt reproducible, cloud-based data workflows. Operating as a dual entity (Openscapes LLC in the US and Openscapes Collaborative LTD in the UK), its flagship Champions Program is a structured 10-week cohort engagement combining lessons, coworking sessions, and reflection to shift data-intensive research workflows toward open science. The Mentors Framework trains internal open-science leaders within partner organizations (NASA DAACs, NOAA Fisheries science centers, California Water Boards) to sustain and scale practices after formal cohort engagement ends. Core technical assets include the earthaccess Python library for NASA Earth science data access, the NASA Earthdata Cloud Cookbook (22 contributors), openly published curricula on GitHub, and a JupyterHub instance hosted at openscapes.cloud via 2i2c.

Primary customers are public-sector research agencies and mission-driven research institutions, with named engagements spanning NASA Earthdata (7 DAACs), NOAA Fisheries (600+ staff across all 6 science centers and multiple regional offices), California Water Boards, the European Space Agency's EarthCODE project, and Fred Hutch Cancer Center. The organization monetizes exclusively through grant funding and institutional partnership contracts rather than commercial pricing; no public pricing model is disclosed. Its go-to-market is community-led, relying on the blog, a newsletter (12 editions as of Winter 2026), conference talks (ESA, AGU, ESIP, Cloud-Native Geospatial, posit::conf), Mastodon, and GitHub for outreach. The team is small and founder-led, with Julie Lowndes as the public face and around five visible core team members as of 2026.

Name

OPENSCAPES COLLABORATIVE LTD

Legal name

Openscapes Collaborative LTD

Website

https://openscapes.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2025

Operating status

Operating

Short description

Openscapes is a grant-funded open-science organization that helps government and research-institution teams adopt reproducible, cloud-based data workflows through cohort-based training programs, open-source tooling, and community-led mentorship.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Open Science Research Training & Mentorship

NAICS

Computer Training (611420), Educational Support Services (61171), Professional and Management Development Training (611430)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Data Science & Analytics Learning Platforms (EDAFANAG)

akta.pro secondary industries

Earth Science & Geoscience Programs (EDAMABAI), Online/Hybrid Lifelong Learning Platforms & Open Enrollment Programs (EDAAAEAL), Open Homework Systems & OER-Integrated Courseware (EDAGAJAH)

Keywords

• Open science training
• Data-intensive research
• Research community mentoring
• Earth science cloud migration
• Reproducible research workflows

Headquarters

HQ city

Carnforth

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Offices3 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

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

Revenue model

1. Grant funding and partnership contracts: Openscapes operates as a grant-funded and partnership-supported organization. Funding comes from grants (e.g., NASA, NOAA) and organizational partnership agreements with government agencies (NOAA Fisheries, NASA Earthdata) and other research institutions to deliver Champions cohorts, Mentors training, workshops, and co-developed open science resources. The organization is not commercially product-focused; services are delivered in partnership rather than as billable commercial engagements.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Openscapes delivers cohort-based open science mentorship and training programs (notably the 10-week Champions Program and the Mentors Framework) to research teams inside government agencies and research institutions, helping them modernize data-intensive workflows using Jupyter, Quarto, GitHub, and cloud-based earth science data access. Programs are delivered as funded partnerships with agencies such as NASA Earthdata, NOAA Fisheries, the European Space Agency, the California Water Boards, and Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and are accompanied by openly licensed curricula, the earthaccess Python library, and the NASA Earthdata Cloud Cookbook.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

• 151 research teams supported through the Champions Program across 27 cohorts
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers5 records

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature4 records

Partnerships

Ten partnerships are on record, tiered core, strategic and minor.

• CryoCloud (StratusGeo)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026Openscapes collaborates with CryoCloud (StratusGeo) as a continuation of JupyterHub community work. CryoCloud provides cloud infrastructure and community expertise that complements Openscapes' workflow training and mentorship in the NASA Earthdata ecosystem.
• European Space Agency (ESA) — EarthCODEstrategicStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2026Openscapes is leading its first international Champions Cohort with ESA's EarthCODE project, representing a new international expansion. ESA participation at the Living Planet Symposium (2025) catalyzed this partnership, including ESA's EarthCODE Integrated Platforms tutorial and panel discussions.
• ESIP (Earth Science Information Partners)coreGTM or Marketing Partner · 15 December 2025ESIP co-funded (via FUNding Friday $5K grant) and co-hosted the earthaccess December 15 Hackday with Openscapes and Cloud Native Geospatial Forum. ESIP provides ongoing community infrastructure, conference venues, and grant funding that Openscapes leverages for outreach and event delivery.
• Cloud Native Geospatial Forum (CNG)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 15 December 2025CNG co-hosted the earthaccess December 15 Hackday with Openscapes and ESIP, providing venue coordination (social hour, in-person New Orleans location), registration infrastructure, and cross-community promotion. CNG represents the broader cloud-native geospatial ecosystem that Openscapes works within.
• Intertidal AgencycoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 July 2025Openscapes partnered with Intertidal Agency (Kate Wing and Rachael Blake) to develop and teach new lessons for the Champions program on data preservation — including a Metadata lesson and Zenodo Clinic. Intertidal is also leading a Data Stewardship Cohort reusing Openscapes Champions structure and lessons, indicating a mutual co-development relationship.
• California Water BoardscoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025Openscapes provides coaching to the California Water Boards Openscapes team (Anna Holder, Devan Burke, Tina Ures, Elena Suglia, Greg Gearheart) on mentor community building, program scaling, and strategic communications. The Water Boards have led four internal Champions cohorts and developed an Implementation Strategy for open science adoption.
• Google DriveminorOthersUsed as a storage provider for personal information, listed in the privacy policy GDPR addendum as a third-party data processor. Transfers comply with the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
• GitHubminorOthersUsed as a storage provider and collaboration platform for open resources and personal information handling, listed in the privacy policy as a third-party data processor. Openscapes maintains its primary open-source code and community resources on GitHub (@openscapes).
• NASA Earthdata Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOpenscapes has a 5-year partnership with 7 NASA DAACs (ORNL, NSIDC, ASDC, GHRC, LP DAAC, OB.DAAC, PO.DAAC) who participate in the NASA Openscapes Mentors community. DAAC staff co-develop resources like earthaccess and the Earthdata Cloud Cookbook, and deliver workshops to NASA Earthdata users.
• NOAA FisheriescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOpenscapes has a multi-year partnership with NOAA Fisheries spanning 16 Champions cohorts with 600+ staff across all 6 science centers and multiple regional offices. Openscapes co-develops Mentors communities within the agency, supports cloud migration workflows, and integrates with NOAA's open science modernization goals.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Broad incumbents

• NASA TOPS (Transform to Open Science): NASA's Transform to Open Science initiative is a broad, agency-wide open science training program that represents both a partner and a comparable. TOPS is a federal incumbent operating at much larger scale with similar curriculum goals, and is a logical partner or competitive overlap for Openscapes' NASA work.
• DataCamp: DataCamp is a commercial online learning platform for data science and Python/R skills. It is a broad incumbent in the data skills training category but targets individual learners and corporate accounts rather than the cohort-based, mission-driven research community model that defines Openscapes.

Direct peers

• The Carpentries: The Carpentries is a community-led nonprofit that teaches data and coding skills to researchers through cohort-based workshops (Software, Data, and Library Carpentry). It is the closest direct peer to Openscapes in pedagogy, community-building methodology, and target audience of research scientists.
• 2i2c: 2i2c operates the openscapes.cloud JupyterHub infrastructure and is an active partner in Openscapes' workshops. It is a direct peer in serving open scientific computing communities with managed JupyterHub environments for research teams.
• Earth Lab (University of Colorado Boulder): Earth Lab is a university-based initiative that teaches earth data science skills and supports open, reproducible workflows. It is comparable to Openscapes in targeting earth science researchers with data-intensive training, though delivered through an academic institution rather than grant-funded community model.

Emerging players

• Pangeo: Pangeo is an open community for big data geoscience built around open-source tooling (Xarray, Dask, Zarr) for earth science. It is partially comparable: Openscapes works with the same NASA Earthdata user community, and coordinates through the Mentors network, but Pangeo focuses on technology stack rather than community training.
• ESIP (Earth Science Information Partners): ESIP is a community consortium for Earth science data practitioners that provides collaboration infrastructure, conference venues, and small grants (e.g., the $5K FUNding Friday grant that co-funded the earthaccess hackday). It is a comparable community convener in the same domain, partially overlapping with Openscapes' mission.
• rOpenSci: rOpenSci develops open-source R packages for scientific research and runs community training programs. It is partially comparable in building open science practitioner communities, but is R-centric and tool-focused rather than workflow-methodology-focused like Openscapes.
• CryoCloud: CryoCloud is a cloud JupyterHub platform for the cryosphere community that partners with Openscapes on JupyterHub community work. It is comparable in providing cloud-based research infrastructure for earth science subcommunities, with a narrower technical focus than Openscapes' broader methodology approach.

Others

• Posit (formerly RStudio): Posit is the commercial entity behind RStudio, Quarto, and related open-source data science tooling. It is an enabling/ecosystem peer — Openscapes builds curricula around Quarto and partners with Posit on community coworking, but Posit sells commercial data science tools rather than training programs.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/openscapes
• GitHubgithub.com/openscapes

Compliance3 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about OPENSCAPES COLLABORATIVE LTD