WindBorne Systems, a Redwood City-based startup, has won a U.S. Air Force contract worth up to $49 million for data from its fleet of roughly 700 autonomous weather balloons. The Air Force pays only as it needs data, and has so far ordered $1.7 million worth, with executives expecting more orders to follow.
The company feeds balloon readings into its own deep-learning weather model, WeatherMesh 6, which it says provides more accurate forecasts than the traditional physics-based model run by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. WindBorne says the contract, awarded without competitive bidding, reflects a government determination that it was the only company able to provide this global data collection capability.
WindBorne has previously worked with the National Weather Service and the U.S. Air Force and Navy, but this is its largest contract to date. The company raised a $37 million Series B round earlier this year and, in August, became the first to send an unpowered balloon into the eye of a typhoon, using its AI model for operational navigation.