The Story of SeekOps: Building the Future of Emissions Monitoring from Mars to Earth

The Story of SeekOps: Building the Future of Emissions Monitoring from Mars to Earth

Sometimes the most impactful innovations come from unexpected places. For SeekOps, the journey to revolutionizing emissions monitoring began not on Earth, but with technology designed for Mars.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, CEO Iain Cooper shared the remarkable story of how NASA technology evolved into a global leader in emissions monitoring, highlighting the company’s unique path from space exploration to industrial innovation.

From Mars to Market

SeekOps’ story begins in 2017 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where founders Andrew Aubreyam and Brendan Smith were working on the Mars Curiosity rover project. As Iain explains: “They were working on technology for the Mars Curiosity rover… and they had the idea of saying how can we use this commercially back on planet Earth?”

The founders saw an opportunity to combine their NASA-developed sensor technology with unmanned aerial systems for commercial applications. Early validation came through funding from Equinor to explore methane detection in oil fields. This initial support enabled a crucial move: “They took the company from Pasadena to Austin, which is where we are now, and set up the company.”

Building Credibility Through Validation

Rather than rushing to market, the team prioritized scientific validation. “They worked closely with Stanford University on validating the technology, that independent validation of the technology being really important for them,” Iain notes. This approach paid off, leading to funding from the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative climate investments group.

The company’s commitment to scientific rigor helped them expand beyond initial applications. Iain shares: “Between when I joined and now we’ve had a couple of world’s first, the world’s first biotechester survey as well as the first detailed landfill survey. So in addition to oil and gas, we’ve expanded into a couple of other regions as well.”

From Corporate to Startup

In 2020, after 30 years at Schlumberger, Iain joined SeekOps to help scale the company. The transition wasn’t without challenges: “Having had 30 years in kind of the tech side of things so it wasn’t really truly operational focused. So having a good team around me that’s more operational focused and more business focused was probably something that I was more concerned about.”

But the move proved transformative for both Iain and SeekOps: “We’ve pulled together a very nice performant executive management team now that really understands, is truly collaborative and is all moving in the right direction.”

Scaling Through Innovation

SeekOps’ approach to scaling focused on partnership rather than massive internal growth. “We don’t plan on adding a lot of heads because again, our business model really is to scale with those drone service providers as independent industrial drone companies,” Iain explains. This strategy enabled rapid global expansion: “We are now commercial on six continents.”

The results speak for themselves: “Last year we tripled our revenue from the previous year.” This growth came from transitioning customers from pilots to full-scale deployments: “That’s really all been about the transition from operators, trialing pilots, seeing how these technologies work from one or two jobs to I want to come and do 300 well pads or can you come back every quarter?”

The Future of Emissions Monitoring

Looking ahead, SeekOps has ambitious plans to expand its impact. The company is developing a CO2 sensor to complement its methane monitoring capabilities. As Iain explains: “Methane, because it’s the shorter lived molecule compared to CO2, kind of determines the rate of temperature rise for climate effects. The CO2 determines the magnitude. So both are important.”

The vision extends beyond just technology development. “Three years from now, we’d certainly want to have commercial operations for both CO2 and methane… I’d love to point to the fact of just how much methane we’ve abated by identifying very early in real time the emissions from sites.”

Ultimately, SeekOps aims to completely transform industrial monitoring through automation: “I want to automate from proposal to payment… so when a customer comes with a request, everything, including the survey, the data analysis, and our payment is automated.”

From Mars rover technology to global emissions monitoring, SeekOps’ journey demonstrates how breakthrough innovation, combined with careful market development and strategic scaling, can transform an entire industry’s approach to critical challenges.