Built to Scale: Urban Sky Is Creating an Economy in the Stratosphere

From a Colorado garage to a $30M Series B, Urban Sky is proving that big ideas don’t always need rockets to reach new heights.

We visited Andrew Antonio, Co-Founder and CEO of Urban Sky, to explore how this Colorado startup is redefining what’s possible in the stratosphere. Their reusable Microballoons™ are launched from the back of pickup trucks and can image more than 1,000 square kilometers per hour. They're transforming how we monitor our world, from disaster zones to military operations.

Urban Sky’s largest customer today is the U.S. government. Their systems are lightweight, rugged, and personally deployable. Soldiers can launch them in under five minutes to establish a tactical presence in the stratosphere. The company is building an entirely new class of infrastructure that allows for real-time data collection in ways satellites and drones simply can’t match.

The origins of Urban Sky trace back to years spent engineering at the edge of Earth’s atmosphere.

Co-founders Andrew Antonio and Jared Leidich met while working on stratospheric systems in Roswell, New Mexico. Jared led the team that built the spacesuit for a record-breaking skydive from 136,000 feet. Andrew led operations for high-altitude balloon launches. They later helped build World View, a space tourism company using massive balloons to carry passengers to the edge of space.

But as satellite hardware shrank and became more accessible, they realized no one was applying that same evolution to the stratosphere. They set out to build something smaller, more agile and more cost-effective.

Andrew was based in California at the time, but didn’t have a place to prototype. Jared had a garage in Colorado. That’s where they built the first version of Urban Sky’s reusable balloon system—and where the idea began to take flight.

The company’s early growth was supported by Techstars and has since evolved into a full-stack aerospace business. With a $30 million Series B raised earlier this year, Urban Sky is scaling production, expanding R&D and developing new commercial and defense solutions. Every component of their technology is built in-house at their Colorado facility, from balloon materials and seam-sealing to navigation software, imaging payloads and edge-processing systems.

The mission is bold. “To pioneer humanity’s routine and easy access to the stratosphere and the value locked within it,” Andrew told us. “We’re building the stratospheric data layer—and that’s where we believe the future lives.”

Urban Sky’s current systems can fly above 60,000 feet and remain airborne for multiple days. The company is already working with NASA, the Department of Defense, and other government agencies on applications like wildfire detection, crop insurance and disaster response. In one use case, their thermal imaging payload can identify small heat signatures in real time—providing early alerts for wildfires before they spread. In another, their cameras help water agencies assess post-fire erosion in remote watersheds.

Unlike satellites, Urban Sky’s balloons can be launched from nearly anywhere. They're designed to be recovered, which means data doesn’t need to be transmitted via costly satellite links. The team retrieves the balloon and extracts high-resolution imagery directly from onboard systems.

Today, the team is 48 people strong and growing. Their Colorado facility can produce up to 12,000 balloons per year. With plans to expand internationally in the coming year, Urban Sky is positioning itself to deploy over 1,000 balloons for global monitoring—unlocking a new layer of infrastructure between Earth and space.

So why Colorado? The real answer is simple. Jared had a garage. But it turns out the state was the perfect launchpad. The FAA has been an unusually supportive partner, allowing the company to complete over 380 test flights. That kind of regulatory openness gave Urban Sky the freedom to build, test, and iterate at speed.

Urban Sky isn’t just building balloons. They’re building a new economy in the stratosphere—and they’re doing it from right here in Colorado.

Follow Urban Sky’s journey as they scale new altitudes on LinkedIn or visit urbansky.com to learn more about their mission and technology.