The renewed need to focus on predicting weather or climate and protecting against its impacts makes ClimateAi’s platform and other climate prediction tech startups more important than ever, attracting more funds from venture capital investors.
Climate change is quickly hastening and its impacts are destroying food production and infrastructure, depleting water resources, and killing lives. Its effects are obvious, from immense heat waves to destructive floods and wildfires.
Meanwhile, there has been a growing group of climate intelligence startups using AI and data to predict weather like ClimateAi. They’re increasing in number quickly, which VCs believe to significantly make communities and businesses adapt to climate change.
Investment Into Climate Tech Startups Skyrockets
Studies show that extreme weather events are likely to become more frequent or more intense as the planet heats up. So what’s that got to do with startups?
From predicting any chances for rain for a planned vacation to possible flood or fire incidence of constructing properties, climate tech startups offer both consumers and companies weather prediction services.
They use AI along with a host of data points from satellites to provide real-time weather and climate determinations.
And as the effects of climate change get worse, the data that these VC-backed startups produce and manage keep on growing. So does the amount of VC funding they receive; weather prediction is a hot theme among funded tech startups recently.
According to Crunchbase data, investments into weather and climate prediction startups went up, from over $145 million in 2017 to over $541 million in 2021. A sample of investment in the space revealed at least 23 startups focusing on climate prediction have secured funding.
ClimateAi, in particular, had raised $22 million last month in its Series B funding round led by Four Rivers Group. Other investors that participated include Neotribe’s Ignite fund, Yaletown Partners, Radical Ventures, Neotribe Seed Fund, and Academy Investor Network.
ClimateAi: What it Does and How its Platform Works
The new round brings ClimateAi’s total funding to $38 million. Since its oversubscribed Series A fundraising, the climate tech startup had grown its annual revenue by a factor of 5. The California-based startup had also increased its customer base 4x.
ClimateAi’s unique platform, ClimateLens™, uses AI technologies to produce actionable weather and climate-related insights for businesses worldwide.
The startup works with companies across industries to build climate resilience, from research and development to operations and supply chain. These include agriculture, food and beverages, manufacturing, finance, apparel, retail, energy, and government and NGOs.
The company’s technology can identify locations for climate-smart expansions for certain crops and manufacturing sites, for instance.
Their data can also help manufacturers adjust shipment or delivery schedules to maximize efficiency at times of good weather. It could help wineries as well to learn which places will have more rainfall to plant crops next season.
ClimateAi’s climate resilience platform also helps companies and governments in the aspects of climate risk management, asset diligence and portfolio management, demand planning, sales and marketing, and sustainability and TCFD reporting.
Proceeds from the latest funding round will be for expanding into new territories such as India and low-income countries where climate adaptation is urgent. The funds will also help the climate tech startup grow its team for continued AI-backed innovations in climate resilience.
Climate Tech Innovations Across Sectors
As climate change issues seep through all sectors, the applications for climate prediction technologies are increasing and widening. These climate technologies are also scalable, the reason why VC investors are pouring money into this growing sector.
Many of the startups operating in this market are using the platform-as-a-service model. This allows them to use the same climate data for various purposes and offer them to different entities.
That only means weather and climate tech startups have found their way into almost every sector, expanding from the agriculture and energy industries. ClimateAi’s CEO, Himanshu Gupta asserted that:
“Tomorrow there’s going to be every company on this planet Earth whose operations and supply chains will be impacted by climate change… And if they act on it, it will lead to not only increased profits for these companies, but also improved resilience for the communities they serve.”
Venture funding into climate-risk startups favor the areas of property, travel, and insurance since 2017.
Another climate-focused startup, One Concern, closed over $22 million to help real estate developers understand climate risks to their properties. The climate resilience tech firm enables companies to focus on their adaptation strategies through its resilience analytics.
Tomorrow.io, a SaaS weather intelligence platform that provides real-time weather forecasts, has raised $20 million to help retail and sporting businesses cut down energy expenses using climate analytics.
As more and more sectors are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, climate prediction startups will also see more investors backing up their innovations.