How Do Weather Prediction Startups Compete?

Private weather forecasting is a cozy industry dominated by giants like AccuWeather and The Weather Company. IBM acquired AccuWeather in 2016 for $2.3 billion, and A Swiss holding company now owns the Weather Company. DTN, a weather-forecasting company, focusing on industrial concerns, was recently acquired for $900 million. Several weather-related startups have raised hundreds of millions of dollars from venture capitalists in recent months.

One such startup is Atmo, which graduated from Y Combinator earlier this year and raised $2 million from investors. Founder Johan Mathe is a former employee of Google X, which included projects such as Project Loon, which focused on floating balloons for internet connectivity. With his expertise and his team of scientists, he saw an opportunity to compete with established weather organizations. 

Another weather prediction startup, Understory, manufactures sensors to measure the physical properties of clouds and other atmospheric elements. The sensors can collect up to 125,000 weather metrics per second. Understory helps companies understand the financial implications of weather on their operations by analyzing the collected data. The company’s Dot Weather Sensor, which captures 125,000 weather metrics per second, enables Understory to provide insurance to companies and educate them about the financial impact of weather.

Another smaller startup is WindBorne Systems, which is working on sensors to collect high-resolution, hyper-local data. WindBorne Systems has a reputation for producing weather balloons with high-resolution sensors. Its balloons are more rugged than conventional balloons and can collect data at specific points of interest. WindBorne has founders who are on Forbes’ 30 under 30 list.

ClimaCell has been around since 2015, developing its technology and building partnerships. It taps into the millions of signals from mobile phones and cellular devices and uses those signals to determine the weather conditions in a location. It also analyses images taken from street cameras. Its weather-forecasting service touts its predictions as 60% more accurate than existing weather services.