I built the infrastructure your deals are trying to disrupt.
I help climate and deep tech funds evaluate deals in earth observation, geo-AI, and climate data infrastructure. I’ve built these systems at planetary scale — at Microsoft in the US, the World Bank across three continents, and now LGND/Clay between the US and Europe. I know what’s defensible and what’s demo-ware. Fluent on both sides of the Atlantic.
let’s talk · full career → · speaking → · about me →
What I Bring
Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, LGND — AI-powered Earth intelligence search engine. Building the search engine for the planet.
Co-Founder & Executive Director, Clay — Open-source foundation model for Earth observation, built as a non-profit. The model and embeddings are free for anyone to use. Apache 2.0 licensed.
Founder & Program Director, Microsoft Planetary Computer — $50M+ global initiative: petabytes of environmental data, 100+ datasets, hundreds of research projects supported.
Data Scientist & Senior Consultant, World Bank — Technical lead for advanced analytics and the Development Data Partnership. Worked across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East on satellite analytics for poverty mapping and transport modeling.
Chief Scientist, Mapbox — Helped scale the company from ~20 to ~100 people. Co-developed foundational mapping algorithms still in use today.
World Economic Forum Young Global Leader (2013). PhD Astrophysics (Magna Cum Laude), Max Planck / University of Göttingen. Former NASA/NRL postdoctoral researcher.
How I Work With Funds
I work with a small number of climate and deep tech funds on technical assessments of earth observation and geo-AI investments. This includes per-deal due diligence, retained quarterly advisory, and expert consultations. I also originate deals from my network across ESA, Copernicus, OGC, and the Clay open-source community.
Interested? let’s talk.
Recent Thinking
- Data Centers in Space: The Wrong Chip in the Right Place — Putting latest AI chips in orbit will literally melt them. Space chips won’t be Silicon.
- Visions of Earth Intelligence — Three paths to AI for Earth: Agentic AI, Embeddings, and Index-based retrieval.
- Google Earth AI: A Critical Take — Google’s geo moat is getting weaker, not stronger.
- From Earth Pixels to GeoEmbeddings — How foundation models compress Earth observation data into rich mathematical vectors.
Let’s Talk
If you’re evaluating a deal or building a portfolio thesis in earth observation, satellite AI, or climate data infrastructure — let’s talk.
Author of Impact Science: The Science of Getting to Radical Social and Environmental Breakthroughs.