ClimaCell, the weather forecasting and intelligence service that is using a host of exciting new techniques to collect weather data, announced today that it has collected a $ 23 million Series C round led by new investor Pitango Growth and current investor. Square Peg Captial. With this new round, the total financing of the Boston-based company and TelAviv now exceeds $ 100 million.
Like ClimaCell Co-founder and CEO Shimon Elkabetz told me that the round met well after the start of the COVID-19 blocks around the world and the team never met its new investors in person. Since the pandemic has affected many of ClimaCell's travel customers, the company has taken some steps in recent months to cut costs and expand its overall track, but Elkabetz stressed that the company did not need to lift this new round. and that the investors approached the company.
"We have taken some aggressive but respectful actions to reduce our expenses and created a significant track," explained Elkabetz. "We don't really need to raise funds now, but this opportunity has come to us and we decided to take it, because it gives us a significant opportunity to invest in strategic things."
Given the changing business climate, the company has redoubled its efforts to brand its service as an intelligence platform that helps companies make smart decisions about operations, even if they are not meteorologists. In practice, this means more attention to the Insights service, which helps operators in various industries make smart decisions based on the company's predictions. With this, ClimaCell can help a construction company to ensure that a construction site is safe when a storm arrives and when it should close its crane operations due to the wind, for example, or when a logistics company should expect slowdowns due to heavy rains. Instead of providing users with a weather forecast, the company's tools instead provide actionable tips.
"65% of world GDP is affected by weather events. ClimaCell is the only SaaS company that enables usable objects before weather events rather than reacting to them and their implications and ramifications, "said Aaron Mankovski, Pitango's Managing General Partner Growth, in today's announcement. "The opportunities that come to ClimaCell in all sectors including supply chain and logistics, railways, trucking, shipments, on demand, energy, insurance and more represent a complete renewal of the existing competitive landscape and is a testimony to being focused on laser on customer value. "
Elkabetz noted that the company plans to use the new funding to expand both its market efforts and to focus on the fundamental research and development that makes its platform work. He was not quite ready to share what research and development efforts would have been, but he expects to be able to announce these new capabilities "soon".
The company also plans to launch some updates soon for its consumer mobile app. While the consumer app may not be ClimaCell's primary focus, it uses the same technology in the back end, including for example a version of Insights for recreational activities. For Elkabetz, the consumer app helps spread the ClimaCell brand, but also expects it to become a real business.
