About us - Lux Aerobot

Originally founded in 2018 in Montréal, Canada, then also incorporated in 2019 in Australia, Lux has experienced rapid growth in both countries since its inception, with commercial projects expanding from the mining sector to wildfire management. The company has been trusted by the Australian Defence Force at its debuts, becoming its first official customer, with the mandate of helping to combat wildfires and monitor coastlines.

Lux’s vision is to operate a global network of observation balloons to acquire images at a better resolution than current technologies in order to create an ultra-high-resolution digital twin of Earth’s surface. Combined with the right geospatial analytics, the information feed can benefits companies and agencies as insights related to their operations on the Earth. This vision was founded on the premise that there is no existing space product that can deliver real-time persistent remote sensing, and that an affordable and precise dataset about the Earth can unlock unprecedented understanding about our human activities on our planet.

Our history

Lux is a space-robotics company that specializes in the design, manufacturing and operation of high-altitude platforms for Earth observation. Through its unique imagery data, Lux is developing AI solutions to help a range of applications, from wildfire management to national security, leveraging machine learning algorithms suited for multiple industries. Therefore, identifying the right data set based on each customer’s needs is critical. We can help with a vast range of scientific instruments that provide data we can then share with our users via API. Combined with the right analytics, there are hardly any limits to what solution we can build.

2018/

Inception of the company

Lux Aerobot is founded in Montréal, QC in 2018 by Vincent Lachance and Katrina Albert. Their mission is to fill a gap of information on the Earth’s surface that is not available, making it impossible for companies to make the right decision at the right time regarding their operations on the Earth.

2019/

Constitution of the Australian corporation

The company has been constituted in Sydney, NSW in 2019. Quickly, Lux moves its office to Adelaide, SA, in a willingness to play an important role in the aerospace hub being developed there, especially with the newly-created Australian Space Agency. In the same year, Lux opens a second office in Melbourne, VIC.

2020/

First official customer

Being an innovative company developing a solution that can help with multiple problems, which are having a strong impact on humans lives, the Australian Defence Force is turning to Lux after an unprecedented season of wildfire during the Australian summer of 2019-2020. The goal is to provide a monitoring service that can detect and communicate quickly when new fires are lightning up, to combat them at the source before they expand.

2022/

Successful launch of a stratospheric balloon in Alma, a first in Canada

Lux Aerobot becomes the first Canadian company to successfully launch a stratospheric platform to accomplish Earth observation on January 13^th, 2022. The high-altitude balloon flew off the ground from Alma Airport in the morning at 5:20 in order to reach a maximum altitude of around 20 km, for a flight duration of 3 hours, to finally land at more than 300 km from the launch site, in the Côte-Nord region. (Click here to see full press release)

We are a team with expertise in aerospace engineering and artificial intelligence

Vincent Lachance

Co-founder and CEO

Vincent has founded its first for-profit company, Montreal Fresh, in 2013. Back in the day, it was the first player in the same-day delivery offering of groceries within Québec. At 18 years old, when he attended the French-Canadian version of Shark Tank airing on Radio-Canada, the French-language counterpart of CBC, he met Alexandre Taillefer, a notorious entrepreneur who chose to invest in his company. During 2 years of in-depth studies in aerospace, Vincent read several books on the field while creating links with the major players in the sector. From its work, stratospheric platforms emerged as a product being undervalued by large companies combined with a significant potential market. Thanks to its startup, Vincent received many awards, like being named Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the province of Québec and being selected for Canada’s Top 20 Under 20 in 2015.

Katrina Albert

Co-founder and President

Katrina is also responsible for business development activities, being responsible for leading discussions with end-users and obtaining their feedback in order to communicate their needs to the project development team. For over 5 years, Katrina has excelled in sales and partnership roles. Her most recent experience was with the sales team of a Canadian flagship, Lightspeed POS, where she distinguished herself as a sales rep by reaching 100% of her monthly sales goal. She is the recipient of numerous awards such as her selection for the Adopte Inc. program, C2 Montreal Emerging Entrepreneurs, and her participation in numerous podcasts in her community. Outside of Lux, Katrina has served on numerous boards of directors in recent years, including the Association des écoquartiers de Montréal, responsible for cities’ environmental education initiatives.

Our global expertise

We effectively operate a constellation of stratospheric platforms and leverage our advanced knowledge in data science and machine learning to process the data of Earth’s surface that we acquire from them. Then, we can provide our customers with ready-to-use information for decision-making. As we develop the hardware as well as the software, we can easily adapt our technology to fit the needs of our clients.

Our expertise

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