The LSE Directory / Alternative data
Maxar Technologies is a US satellite Earth observation and geospatial intelligence business built around a constellation of very high resolution optical imaging satellites: WorldView-1, WorldView-2, WorldView-3, GeoEye-1 and, since 2024, the six satellite WorldView Legion fleet. The satellites image at resolutions down to about 30 centimetres and can revisit the same location up to 15 times a day. Imagery, basemaps (Vivid), 3D terrain models and newer AI analytics products (Cortex, Forge, Sentry for change detection, Raptor for GPS denied navigation) are delivered through what was the Maxar Geospatial Platform and is now branded the Vantor Hub. The business differentiates on resolution and archive depth rather than price. Where rivals such as Planet Labs and ICEYE lean on daily revisit medium resolution or SAR coverage, the WorldView line targets the sharpest commercially available optical imagery plus a multi decade image archive and proprietary 3D terrain data. Its core customer base is US and allied government, defense and intelligence agencies; by its own account it supplies roughly 90% of the foundational geospatial intelligence used by the US government, supplemented by civil government mapping and commercial customers. The raw archive has also long been licensed to third party geoanalytics vendors, most notably a multi year Orbital Insight partnership that turned Maxar and, pre merger, DigitalGlobe optical and SAR imagery into retail traffic, crop yield and energy/commodity storage signals sold on to corporate research and trading desks; this makes the imagery an input into commercial alternative data products rather than a dataset marketed directly to hedge funds under the Maxar name. The lineage traces to DigitalGlobe, a satellite imaging company founded in 1992 by Walter Scott. The modern Maxar Technologies was formed in 2017 when Canada's MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) acquired DigitalGlobe and took the Maxar name, headquartered in Westminster, Colorado; the company added 3D data specialist Vricon in 2020 for $140 million. Advent International agreed in December 2022 to take Maxar private in an all cash deal valued at $6.4 billion, which closed in May 2023; by September 2023 the business had split into Maxar Space Systems (satellite manufacturing, California) and Maxar Intelligence (imagery and data, Colorado). Notable government work includes the NGA's Global Enhanced GEOINT Delivery program and the US Army's One World Terrain program, alongside partnerships with Lockheed Martin, Saab and Anduril. Dan Smoot, a former Riverbed Technology and Salesforce executive, has been CEO of the intelligence business since November 2023. On 1 October 2025 Maxar Intelligence retired the Maxar name and rebranded as Vantor (maxar.com now redirects to vantor.com), positioning itself as a software driven "spatial intelligence" company centred on a new AI platform, Tensorglobe, rather than a pure imagery vendor; the satellite manufacturing sibling, Maxar Space Systems, rebranded the same day as Lanteris. Reported 2025 revenue for the renamed business was $487.5 million with roughly 1,900 to 2,000 employees. This entry covers the Maxar Intelligence/Vantor imagery and data business, the entity most relevant to geospatial and alternative data buyers.
