WindBorne Systems

The Wall Street Journal’s Eric Niiler covers how WindBorne Systems, Google, Microsoft, and NVIDIA are leading the way in using AI to revolutionize weather prediction, making forecasts thousands of times faster and significantly more accurate. 🌥️ Niiler notes that the United States Air Force, US Navy, and others are already backing WindBorne’s efforts to continue honing AI-based modeling. Check out more in this (paywall-free) link 👇: https://lnkd.in/g52HyZTx #AIforecasts #deeplearning #weatherintelligence

A friend invited me to see a balloon launch at WindBorne Systems in Silicon Valley. I’ve never been to an event like this before. Their website is: https://lnkd.in/g6ksckxN I learned from them that the atmospheric data is one of the biggest missing pieces in improving modern weather forecasts. WindBorne Systems fuses data from long-duration balloons with state-of-the-art AI models to produce the most accurate weather forecasts. What’s cool about this startup is that they’ve created a network of weather balloons that can be directed from the ground. The ballons fly at approx. 20000 meters in the stratosphere. They move the balloons using principles similar to sailing on water. Amazingly, the cost of a balloon is comparable to that of a smartphone! And a ballon can last years ! The electronics that the ballons carry are powered by solar energy. Their business model involves monetizing the data collected by this global balloon network, enabling highly accurate weather predictions worldwide. I think this is brilliant!!!

🌟 Celebrating a Major Milestone at WindBorne Systems! 🌟 On January 11, 2024, we launched our 1,000th balloon. To make this milestone extra special, we paused operations at other sites that day, ensuring the launch would take place from our workspace where the entire team could witness this incredible achievement. It took us over four years to reach that moment, and it was worth every second of the wait. Now, less than a year later, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve launched our 2,000th balloon! 🚀 Unlike the fanfare surrounding W-1000, this milestone came and went seamlessly—a testament to how much we’ve grown. Back then, our network of sites and operational capacity was much smaller, and every launch felt handcrafted. Today, our launches are supported by robust systems and teams that make operations run smoothly at scale. This milestone represents more than just numbers. This 2000th launch marks a critical milestone on our path to building a planetary nervous system that fundamentally changes the way that we understand the Earth, our weather, and the global climate. With ambitious goals ahead, it’s entirely possible that in the near future, we’ll be launching 1,000 balloons a month, and perhaps even 10,000 balloons a month as we scale to ATLAS-level operations. While these future milestones are exciting, they don’t diminish what we’ve achieved today. Each step forward is worth celebrating, and this one was made possible by the incredible effort of our entire team. Thank you to everyone who has been part of this journey—you’re the heart of what we do. ❤️ Here’s to many more milestones ahead! 🥂 #Milestones #Innovation #Teamwork #OperationsExcellence #WindBorneSystems

ClimateTech Time! We JUST posted our new deep dive with Bill Gross of Idealab into what ClimateTech is, why it's important, and how budding entrepreneurs can get started. This 11-minute video is on Ubiquity University now - https://lnkd.in/gZiRBbpU ClimateTech is a trillion-dollar oppportunity and there are so many different ways to get involved - from software to AI to physical hardware. In the Ubiquity Ventures portfolio we have a whole host of ClimateTech companies: 📍 Stable Auto (predicting and improving the ROI of electric vehicle chargers) - with CEO Rohan Puri 📍 WindBorne Systems - smart weather balloon-based weather data collection and AI-powered forecasting - with CEO John Dean 📍 Derapi - A universal API to connect distributed energy resources for data and control - with CEO Stina Brock 📍 Muon Space - Climate/Earth intelligence from space - with CEO Jonny Dyer Read our re-cap of the 11-minute video and watch it here: https://lnkd.in/gZiRBbpU #climate #climatetech #energy #founders #startups

As #COP29 deliberates about climate financing for developing countries, TomorrowNow.org is proud to partner with WindBorne Systems with the aim of leveraging their weather balloon data as an input to our Global Access Platform (GAP) that's going to ensure accessibility & affordability of next gen weather and climate datasets in helping farmer-facing organizations better drive impact at the last mile #WhyWeatherMatters 📣#ClimateResilience for 100M smallholder #farmers by 2030.Let's go!! Kenya Meteorological Department Kartoza (Pty) Ltd Rhiza Research Regen Organics Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

A big thank you to Aadi Agrawal and the Innovate @ Berkeley team for an incredible experience! We had a blast learning about other startups, meeting brilliant students, and telling people about WindBorne Systems!

🌍Just got back from Nairobi, visiting our first launch site in the Southern Hemisphere! Over the past few months, in collaboration with the Kenya Meteorological Department, WindBorne Systems has been launching our long-duration weather balloons to tackle the critical weather data gap in Sub-Saharan Africa. This marks the beginning of a multi-phase grant with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Alongside the Gates Foundation, TomorrowNow.org and other partners, we are joining the commitment to meet the climate adaptation needs of smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, delivering localized, reliable weather data to build resilient agricultural systems. Why this matters: 🌧️ Sparse Data = Limited Forecast Accuracy: Atmospheric and surface observations in Sub-Saharan Africa are among the lowest globally, meaning localized, reliable weather data is in short supply. 🌾 High-Stakes Agriculture: With a heavy reliance on rain-fed agriculture rather than irrigation, smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa face significant risks to their yield with each unpredictable weather pattern 💰 Funding Gap: Only 2% of global climate finance supports smallholder farmers in Africa and South Asia. To truly scale impact, we need increased funding and more efficient tech solutions. Over the next year or so, WindBorne will be demonstrating its impact in our Global Sounding Balloons and WeatherMesh model. Here’s to building a climate-adaptive future—one launch at a time. 🌍🌱 #weatherdata #kenya #climatetech #climateadaptation #agriculture

Last month, Hurricane Milton took the lives of at least 14 people and caused an estimated $50 billion in damages. It also became one of the fastest to intensify, with winds accelerating by 150 kilometers per hour in a day, a rate the National Hurricane Center (NHC) called “explosive.” Unfortunately, major forecasts weren’t able to predict this intensification. What went wrong? Forecasting models, both conventional and AI-based, acutely lack comprehensive, high-quality weather data, with the biggest gap continuing to be the atmosphere. As part of a proprietary R&D effort, we navigated the first-ever balloon-deployed dropsondes directly into the storm. 🪂 Here’s more on the miniaturized tech (mini parachutes included), as well as our AI forecasting results 👇 https://lnkd.in/g2N6GRB2

We wrapped an incredible WindBorne Systems offsite last week at Tah Mah Lah, one of the greenest homes in America, in Portola Valley, Calif. From sharing 2025 plans, to celebrating nearly 2,000 balloon launches and AI forecasting gains, our bicoastal team of 40 enjoyed a packed two days. To cap it off, our investors at Khosla Ventures, Footwork, and Pear VC came to watch a launch at our HQ over pizza. 🎈 🎉

“In the increasingly competitive space, WindBorne continues to lead in AI weather prediction in key benchmarks set up by government weather models. Armed with a Series A of $15 million led by Khosla Ventures, they want to further work on the model, expand the technical team and launch more balloons.” The Hindustan Times' Shweta Taneja came to WindBorne Systems see our recent TECH WEEK by a16z balloon launch. 🎈 Here’s her deep dive that covers our vision (which we call “Atlas”) to comprehensively observe the atmosphere, why our self-flying, long-duration balloons are so sustainable, and what’s coming next to our AI forecasting suite. 🧠 🌎 https://lnkd.in/gvMpiV9G