WindBorne Systems Raises $37 Million Series B at $250 Million Valuation
Updated
Updated · TechCrunch · Aug 5
WindBorne Systems Raises $37 Million Series B at $250 Million Valuation
1 articles · Updated · TechCrunch · Aug 5
Summary
$37 million in new funding will help WindBorne expand beyond government clients and build a private-sector sales push for its AI weather forecasting business.
The 2019 startup combines proprietary balloon data with deep-learning models, arguing its roughly 600 active balloons and 20 launch sites improve forecasts more efficiently than satellites.
Khosla Ventures and Galvanize co-led the Series B, which WindBorne said follows revenue growth that helped validate demand for its data and forecasting products.
Government agencies still anchor the business: the U.S. National Weather Service buys its data, while the Air Force and Navy fund research including shipboard forecasting tools.
The bet is that AI can finally make weather data easier for businesses to use, opening a private market that has long been hard for sensing startups to crack.