Eindhoven, August 1, 2023 – Itility Group (https://itility.nl), a leading software and data solution provider in Manufacturing, Energy, and AgriTech, is delighted to announce the acquisition of a majority stake in NEO (https://neo.nl), a pioneering Dutch Earth Observation company based in Amersfoort. On April 26, Itility Group completed the acquisition of a majority stake in NEO, marking a significant milestone for both companies in the field of software, data solutions, and earth observation.

About NEO

NEO, located in Amersfoort, provides unique information services that pertain to the changes in our living environment. It specializes in securing and updating often very detailed habitat information using satellite imagery, aerial photos, lidar data, and data from the crowd.

Their services provide up-to-date high-resolution data and calls-to-action on infrastructure, trees and forests, buildings and urbanism, renewable energy components, fields, land use, water and natural vegetation, and on the observed changes therein. SignalEyes is their service to monitor all buildings, roads, watercourses, trees and fields in The Netherlands. NEO is the first company on earth to provide such a detailed service on an entire country. 

New opportunities

With its new owner, NEO will be able to accelerate faster to anticipate the rapidly growing demand of the industry for large scale satellite-based data solutions – to be used for crop management, map registrations, asset valuation and risk assessment, tree maintenance, pipeline management, building inspections and control, CO2 monitoring, and detection of invasive species. This improves business outcomes and supports the sustainable development goals for water and food security (SDG6 and SDG2).  

Supported by Itility, NEO can further scale its technology and deploy this across the globe to support agriculture companies, regulators, and NGOs.

Rob Beck, Managing Director NEO: “At NEO we monitor the planet, because we truly care for her. That is why I am thrilled that with this step, our team of 30+ geo-specialists can team up with the large team of Itility’s technology specialists, to further enhance earth observation for the sustainability of our planet. “

Peter Schepers, CEO Itility: “we are excited to work shoulder-to-shoulder with NEO in such a fascinating field as smart location services and earth observation. With this partnership, we can apply our technical know-how and data science knowledge to actually helping the customers of NEO to detect changes in the environment and manage these properly. “

Rob Beck, “We see the application of remote sensing data and other data techniques reaching a staggering growth curve. To take the next step, we were looking for a partner that can boost our growth from multiple perspectives, without us losing our unique identity as an expert in this field.”

For media inquiries and further information, please contact:

- Itility Group: https://itility.nl, info@itility.nl
- NEO: https://www.neo.nl, info@neo.nl

About Itility Group:
Itility is a prominent software and data solution provider, offering innovative solutions in the fields of Manufacturing, Energy, and AgriTech. With a dedicated team of data, cloud, and software technology specialists, Itility leverages cutting-edge technology and data science to create tailored solutions that drive efficiency, sustainability, and success for its clients.

About NEO:
NEO provides unique information services starting from the changes in our habitat. Satellites, aircraft, and drones frequently monitor these changes. SignalEyes utilizes these observations and provides the analytics to update information. The company has been in business since 1996 and has been perfecting change detection algorithms since. The result is a system capable of detecting changes in the objects our habitat consists of: buildings, yards, trees, roads, watercourses, fields, nature areas. In a second step, the changes are translated into calls to action (CTAs) for specific customers. These CTAs are used in crop management and control, building and tax register updates, pipeline and road monitoring, tree maintenance, solar panel location and size, etc. The system is applied to the entire Netherlands and is already used in niche markets internationally.