# Christian Sanz

> Christian Sanz is a Chilean-American engineer, U.S. Navy veteran, and founder of Skycatch, the San Francisco company that turned drone imagery into high-precision spatial intelligence for construction and mining. After early engineering work at Disney and Silicon Valley startups, he moved from community drone hackathons to an industrial platform used on complex sites around the world. Caterpillar acquired Skycatch in July 2026 to integrate its near-real-time 3D data and AI capabilities with MineStar and RPMGlobal.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO of Skycatch, now part of Caterpillar
- **Organizations:** Skycatch, Caterpillar, U.S. Navy, The Walt Disney Company, LoopNet, Break Media, Kin Community, Storify, DroneGames, NodeCopter, Code2040
- **Nationality:** Chilean-American
- **Education:** Information technology and communications training, U.S. Navy
- **Known for:** Founded Skycatch in 2013 and led it through Caterpillar's acquisition in July 2026., Built an enterprise system combining autonomous data capture, photogrammetry, edge processing, 3D visualization, and AI for construction and mining., Won early work with major industrial organizations including Komatsu, Bechtel, and mining operators across multiple continents.

## Career timeline

- **1991** — Moved from Talca, Chile, to the United States at age 14 and continued high school there.
- **1990s** — Served four years in the U.S. Navy, including work on ship-to-Pentagon communications and training with Navy SEAL class 216.
- **Late 1990s-2000s** — Worked in Disney research and development, including 3D games and related technology, eventually reaching senior engineer.
- **2000s-early 2010s** — Held engineering and technology leadership roles at LoopNet, Break Media, Kin Community, and Storify.
- **2011-2012** — Helped build the NodeCopter community and founded DroneGames, organizing events around programmable drones.
- **2013** — Founded Skycatch in San Francisco after testing drone-based site mapping on active construction projects.
- **2014** — Skycatch raised a $13.2 million funding round and expanded its autonomous aerial data platform.
- **2015** — Began a major partnership with Komatsu to automate high-precision mapping for construction and mining workflows.
- **2024** — Published on AI in mining and comparative on-premises photogrammetry processing; Skycatch also demonstrated EdgeServer and AI road analysis at MINExpo.
- **2026** — Caterpillar acquired Skycatch to integrate its spatial-data and AI capabilities with MineStar and RPMGlobal.

## Achievements

- Founded Skycatch in 2013 and led it through Caterpillar's acquisition in July 2026.
- Built an enterprise system combining autonomous data capture, photogrammetry, edge processing, 3D visualization, and AI for construction and mining.
- Won early work with major industrial organizations including Komatsu, Bechtel, and mining operators across multiple continents.
- Led the engineering push that reduced location variance from meters toward five-centimeter accuracy for Komatsu's industrial requirements.
- Helped organize the early NodeCopter and DroneGames communities around programmable drones.
- Organized the Skycatch Nepal Relief Effort, which used aerial mapping after the 2015 earthquake.
- Co-built the infrastructure for the first version of Storify and managed a product redesign after funding.

## Latest updates

- **2026-07** — Caterpillar acquired Skycatch. Sanz said the combination with MineStar and RPMGlobal would expand the value delivered to mining customers.
- **2025-01** — Sanz wrote that 2025 would move AI from software infrastructure into autonomous hardware and robotics, highlighting Skycatch's work in physical-world automation.
- **2024-09** — Skycatch unveiled EdgeServer for fast on-premises processing and ARAS, an AI-powered road analysis solution, at MINExpo 2024.
- **2024-07** — Sanz published a comparative analysis of on-premises photogrammetry processing tools for mining workflows.
- **2024-04** — Sanz published an overview of AI applications in mining through Skycatch.

## Links

- Website: https://skycatch.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/csanz
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/csanz
- GitHub: https://github.com/csanz
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/csanz

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/christian-sanz
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-18