Emiliano Kargieman: “Importing and exporting high-tech components in the country is prohibitive”

Satellogic founder, Emiliano Kargiemannspoke about the difficulties that exist in Argentina in industrial construction processes, during the knowledge economy panel of the Democracy and Development cycle organized by Clarín.

He said the challenge at the start of Satellogic was that they needed to build the satellites and the industrial matrix that would allow them to produce the parts with a high degree of accuracy, on time and correctly.

In this sense, he observed: “When we started trying to do it in Argentina, it became very complicated for us. We understood that to increase the production of our satellites, beyond a few prototypes, we would have to do it outside the country because the industrial matrix of construction or precision manufacturing does not exist in Argentina “.

“Importing and exporting high-tech components is essentially prohibitive from an economic point of view and unpredictable from the point of view of the processes “, he warned.

“You don’t know when the components you need come in or when you will be able to extract them. We also found ourselves in discussions about vines. At some point we decided we couldn’t face it. We had to set up our first factory in Uruguay, in Montevideo, “he added.

“The design is in Argentina, but we have to go to other parts of the world to do it”condemned.

On the other hand, he stated that the reason for the undertaking “is very personal” and that “many are forced to do it in Argentina”.

“We are a country of entrepreneurs because many times it is the only way to pay the bills. We are used to living in a risky situation that taking a little more risk does not seem so difficult,” he explained.

Kargieman, 46, is the CEO and founder of Satellogic, a technology company focused on building ultra-high-resolution satellites of tiny size – some of them are little less than a shoebox. They have 17 in orbit around the planet and aim to reach 200 by 2025.

Kargieman is a restless one. Entrepreneur and hacker, at the age of 19 he founded his first cybersecurity company, which has worked for Apple, NASA, DARPA, and the US Department of Homeland Security, among other high-profile clients.

Satellogic was founded eleven years ago and went public on Wall Street for the first time in 2022.