Keepers Meets Dominic Edmunds, CEO, PlanetWatchers

Keepers: Thanks Dom, for joining us today. Can you please start us off with an introduction to you and your careers leading up to joining PlanetWatchers?

Dom:  Thanks, Keepers. I’m Dominic Edmunds, CEO of PlanetWatchers and we’re an analytics firm using radar-based satellite data primarily for crop insurance. This isn’t the industry that I come from, I didn’t work in insurance or agriculture and my background is actually in the world of data marketing. Prior to PlanetWatchers, I spent about 10 years founding and running a business called SalesCycle, which is a market leader in the world of data marketing.

That was a very successful journey where we did around $20 million in ARR with 175 heads which was a blast. But, 10 years is a long time in anyone’s book, so I stepped away to spend a bit of time with my family to reflect on what I wanted to do next and it’s turned out to be a strange merging of satellite data, agriculture, and insurance!

Keepers: How did you get into PlanetWatchers?

Dom: I had a tap on the shoulder from a recruitment firm working on behalf of Seraphim Capital, which was PlanetWatchers biggest investor at the time, about a senior opportunity in the realm of Synthetic Aperture Radar, or SAR for short. It was described as technology that allows you to see through clouds, poor weather, and lighting conditions, to take photography of the earth.

When I was first approached about a role in this industry, I felt I wasn’t the right person to speak with as I didn’t know anything about space tech, agriculture, or insurance but there’s a very good reason why it appealed to me. I looked at the sector in more detail, and it’s a sector filled with the sharpest minds you could ever meet in tech & science.

I thought I could add a lot of value to the go-to-market strategy because I fell in love with technology and it went well with my background in marketing tech. I like taking a very complex solution, distilling it to the point where you get it into a can, and go and sell a load of those cans. We have everything you need for perfect synergy: incredible technology, a great founding team, my background, and the markets that we’re entering.

Keepers: Can you tell us about the platform and how it works?

Dom: It’s important for us now that we’re at the market entry point and we’re going to have to be famous for something. We had some very clear requirements and when you’re growing a business that has to be in a sector that has deep pockets, that’s dependable, it can be sticky, and can grow.

Off the back of that, we picked business insurance as a sector that made sense from a remote sensing standpoint, but it was crop insurance that made more sense for a number of specific reasons. Firstly, it’s a particularly large market and in the US alone there’s a $10 billion market in terms of premiums across three major crops like corn, cotton, and soybeans where 200 million acres are planted every year. There are huge challenges monitoring this stuff and it’s an industry that is still underpinned by manual data capture; a farmer has to report on what crop he planted, where he planted, how much he planted, etc. which could have upwards of 1000s of data points.

It takes a crop insurance provider up to four months to collect their entire book of business worth of data, that’s just not acceptable in this day and age. The fact is we can automate this data capture process is a huge step forward. But, then you overlay on top of that the biggest event line to crop insurance which are the claims and the payoffs that come with it as well.

What happens when a large flooding event or wind event happens? For example, there was a wind event in Iowa & Illinois last year on August 10th which caused 1.25 million acres worth of damage, 94% was corn and 6% was soybean with an average age of 113 days. This is what we learnt from our analysis and all of this was done without sending someone to the field. Before PlanetWatchers, a crop insurance provider would send people to the site, walking across the fields, manually tracking the damage, and reporting back. It’s inaccurate, incredibly costly, and it can take upwards of 5 months to get that work done.

In salary alone, it would cost $2.5 million to adjust that type of event whereas we can do that adjusting in a few hours more accurately, cost-effectively, and quickly. That’s the reason why we’ve landed there and, as I said, to be famous for something it’s a good thing to be famous for.

Keepers: It sounds like an amazing product and also a huge market. Start-ups often struggle with selling to enterprises, what has been the general traction for PlanetWatchers?

Dom: The reception has been good. After we decided on this market almost exclusively about 8 months ago, we’ve had significant traction, especially for an AI product, and we are working with a number of the federally approved providers of crop insurance in the US.

Why we’re making good traction is because our go-to-market strategy is like an arrow to the heart, we understand the pain points, the benefits, and who would want a product like ours. We don’t get no-shows on sales calls, and we don’t let people say no, because they recognise we are a game-changer for them.

Both our customers and investors believe we can be a $1 billion business because of the impact that we can have on crop insurance which is always good to hear.

Keepers: Three, four years from now can we say that we’ve met the CEO of a Unicorn start-up?

Dom: Let’s say 5!

Keepers: Can you tell us about the team and what you liked about the team to make you join?

Dom: Absolutely, first of all, it’s the geography of the business. I’m based in the UK with other heads in commercial & finance, we’ve got other heads from the commercial team in the US but all our R&D is based out of Tel Aviv. The founders themselves are ex-members of the lead Israeli military intelligence unit so they can hire directly from the military which means they have the ability to bring great resources into the team easily.

The reason why I get particularly excited about it is that the potential is massive, every quarter more and more satellites are going into orbit which means more data, cheaper data, and the frequency of data gets better. This is an industry where we used to talk about days of manual revisit time, and in the next few years we’ll be at a point where we can quickly revisit any single square foot anywhere on the planet and monitor conditions on an hourly basis, which is an absolutely insane use of the tech!

Keepers: The team is split between Tel Aviv, the US, and the UK, what are the plans for expansion over the next 12 – 18 months?

Dom: The expansion will come off the back of the $3.5 million raise we did a little while ago to invest in both the technology and commercial teams. We have a very strong product-market fit but we want to continue to enhance the features and allow further automation, so we need to invest in the technology.

On the flip side, we need to hire people to take that technology to market from the commercial side. We’re currently a team of 16 so we are not going to go crazy, by the end of the year we’ll be 21 – 22 heads and each of those will be an absolute superstar. As a few examples we’ve just hired an SVP of Sales based out of Denver, Colorado who is a crucial hire to our US expansion, we’ve brought on a very experienced CFO who I’ve worked with before, and we’ve hired a great Head of Product & Engineering. I’m going to market and currently looking for a Head of Client Services / Customer Success who will be crucial to look after our clients.

I’ve been on this journey before, done the hiring piece, and balanced the books to know what we can afford to hire and what to hire, and I’m so excited to build an elite team to deliver on becoming a $billion start-up.

Keepers: You’ve been a founder of a successful business and you grew the team at SalesCycle to 175 people, what advice would you be able to give other founders about growing teams?

Dom: Don’t do it! Only kidding. What I would say is that if it’s your first experience in this, beware of short to medium-term hires. You might have an immediate need for a person but what happens in 6 months when the business has pivoted and you don’t need that person anymore? It’s so important that you have a longer-term vision of the company and team because you can suck up 6 months of pain if it means hiring the right person.

With a long-term vision, you can really plan for the right things moving forward and a business will grow if you’re all invested in it. Some of the questions you need to consider are: Can your team grow with it? Can individuals grow with it? Can the recruitment function grow with it? Are you going to be held back by bringing onboard the wrong heads? Can you bring on too many heads and not have the revenue to support it?

It really is a science and a balancing act, and one of the most important things that you absolutely need is strong financial control. If you have the ability and capital to bring in a financial leader then it’s going to be one of the key pillars of your business. If you’re going out to raise a more complex round like a Series A or B you need to be on top of every single one of your numbers from a financial standpoint, it’s not just storytelling.

We put so much emphasis on charisma and cult-like leadership for founders which can work up until a certain point, but as you advance as a business you need to find the balance between selling the dream and being backed up by stats and figures. You’ve got to show a realistic route to achieving your revenue, not just a finger to the wind.

Keepers: We agree with that. One thing I’ve learned is that pre-seed & seed raising is very emotive and it’s about connecting on a personal level, whereas a Series A+ is where you really need to have a strategy to go to market. Talking of investment, you recently raised a $3.5 million pre-Series A round, what are you going to be using the money for?

Dom: We need to develop a great marketing strategy, starting with buying a plane, putting our logo on the side, and flying around! In all seriousness, marketing is a big part of what we do and the investment in the marketing team has been something that we’ve been focusing on quite heavily.

I firmly believe that the old school way of just hitting the phones and expecting to drive leads is getting more and more challenging every single year and that certainly has been accelerated where people no longer have a desk, let alone a desk phone. So, investing in marketing and inbound leads is crucial, and targeted marketing at that is so important. You need to have a website that is fit for purpose, content that drives people to you. For example, our latest webinar with NASA Harvest allows us to drive leads which aren’t just phone bashing and outreach.

Keepers: How was the pre-Series A round?

Dom: It was a good experience, and we actually went out to raise less than we did, when you have an oversubscribed round it’s nice. The capital is fantastic but the strategic value will be absolutely key and I was more than happy to extend the round if you look at the knowledge that the investors bring. I’m looking at my boardroom and I have Seraphim from a Space Tech standpoint, Creative Ventures from a DeepTech standpoint, Trendlines Group for the crop sector, and then Ridgeline Partners who are deeply connected intro governmental agencies. It’s a great board and I feel like I have an embarrassment of riches.

The selection wasn’t based on how big the cheque was but what value they could bring and while I’m not knocking cash, the value is way more important than cash.

Keepers: If it’s just money then take out a bank loan!

Dom: It’s exactly right. When you raise from a good investor that money comes with insight and a knowledge challenge, and I love being challenged. I wanted to walk into a board meeting and think “I better be on my toes here” because you want to be challenged as much as possible.

Keepers: We’ve discussed the aspiration to be a $billion start-up, but what is the ultimate goal for PlanetWatchers?

Dom: When I say that we’re a $billion like it’s the answer, and that is the destination, but you have to remember that the destinations are less important and I think we put too much emphasis on them.

I once attended a business event around 15 years ago that stuck with me where one of the guest speakers was Elle McPherson. She talked about her brands which, at the time, included lingerie, perfume, and that kind of stuff. She was asked about the ultimate goal and she said something like “You don’t dance to get to the end of the song, you dance because you enjoy it” and I’ve never heard it better.

So far, I’m really enjoying running the business and every step of growth along the way is important and the destination will take care of itself. The next step is $100 million in ARR and every revenue, growth, and each new market is going to be step up after that.

Keepers: Final question, what single piece of advice would you give to a first-time founder?

Dom: It’s important to carry convictions. That can be dangerous and you shouldn’t flog a dead horse but you need to be able to believe in what you are trying to build. You might see something that others don’t, you’ve got to work on that story, and you’ve got to work on how to get investors involved. Once you g.et more and more people onboard, be that team members or investors, that multiplies that belief.

I think a lot of it boils down to that unnerving blind faith that you have as a founder, there’s a reason why you took the risk to do this. You’re not doing it for sh*ts and giggles, you’re doing it because you believe in the end goal. If you can’t get someone else excited about it, then you’re using the wrong language, so revisit it and explain to them why you’re excited.

Keepers: Thanks Dom, great chat!

Find out more about PlanetWatchers: https://www.planetwatchers.com/