Tomorrow.io Secures $87 Million Series E Funding to Expand Weather Data Collection and Military Applications

Tomorrow.io raised $87 million in a Series E funding round, led by Activate Capital, with participation from RTX Ventures, Seraphim Space, and Chemonics. Existing investors, including SquarePeg Capital, Canaan, ClearVision, JetBlue Ventures, and Pitango, also participated in the round.\r \r In April, Tomorrow.io launched its first radar satellite, R-1. The company has since confirmed that all systems, including its space-based radar, are functioning optimally. Rei Goffer, Tomorrow.io's co-founder and chief strategy officer, stated that this is the world's first commercially built weather radar satellite. Prior to this, only a few weather radar satellites had been launched, all of which were developed by space agencies like NASA, JAXA, and the European Space Agency.\r \r In the near future, Tomorrow.io plans to start sharing radar data from R-1 and R-2. The company also anticipates the launch of satellites equipped with microwave sounders in 2024. Tomorrow.io's radar satellites will also offer detailed information on ocean surface winds and sea surface heights.\r \r In terms of military applications, Tomorrow.io has so far secured over $30 million in contracts from the Defense Department. In May, the company received $10.3 million in U.S. Space Force funding for two weather satellites. The funding, awarded through the Defense Department's Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies program, will enhance the existing commercially-owned, managed, and sustained weather constellation to support weather data-as-a-service use by the military. Tomorrow.io is also among the five companies that won contracts to demonstrate the integration of commercial data into the U.S. Air Force Weather Virtual Private Cloud.\r \r The startup also recently unveiled Gale, their Generative AI application designed to provide comprehensive weather data. Shortly thereafter, they launched a GPTChat plugin that integrates with their platform and Gale.\r \r The funding will bolster its mission to collect weather and climate data. The announcement came on the heels of the launch of its second satellite, R-2, on the SpaceX Transporter-8 rideshare flight.