At Pixxel, McCombe will oversee the company’s accounting, financial planning, capital raising, treasury, legal and regulatory functions, as per a blog post from the company on Monday.
McCombe previously led the finance function across leadership positions in various space and technology hardware companies, including Maxar.
“His remarkable experience and foundational understanding of space imagery and satellite manufacturing businesses will be pivotal in steering our financial direction and ensuring sustainable growth. As we navigate the next stages of our journey, we’re excited to work together towards realising our ambitious vision for the future,” Awais Ahmed, founder and CEO, Pixxel, said.
The Google and Lightspeed-backed spacetech startup, which aims to build and launch a constellation of hyperspectral imaging satellites, inaugurated a multi-million-dollar manufacturing facility in Bengaluru, earlier this month.
“With its state-of-the-art hyperspectral satellite constellation, Pixxel will be a game-changer, revolutionising how we view and understand our planet. Its mission of providing an entirely new level of data and analytics for environmental monitoring will have a far-reaching global impact,” McCombe said.
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In his past roles, McCombe was CFO at HZO, a nano-coating supplier for the electronics industry and a managing director in investment banking at Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.Pixxel currently plans to launch six satellites in 2024 and eighteen more by 2025 to build a health monitor for the planet. The company’s clients include the likes of mining major Rio Tinto, oil and gas major British Petroleum, Google and the Indian Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
The startup – founded by Awais Ahmed and Kshitij Khandelwal – began operations in 2019 and last raised $36 million in a funding round in June 2023.