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Ratan Tata-backed ClimaCell launches minute-by-minute, hyper-local weather app in India


Boston-based weather technology firm ClimaCell, which has been backed by Ratan Tata, has launched its weather assistant app on Android and is also opening their Asia Pacific (APAC) office in India.

Launched in 2019 on iOS, ClimaCell’s Weather Assistant has already generated just under 3000 ratings in the App store with an average rating of 4.6 stars out of 5. “40% of the people who downloaded the app have reported that it is now their go-to app for weather forecasting,” Nadav Itach, SVP & Managing Director of APAC office of ClimaCell told ET Digital.

According to Itach, India represents a huge opportunity for ClimaCell. And while the firm is expecting a global growth by expanding to Android, it believes that one of the markets that will benefit is India as more than 90% of the phones in the country are on Android.

“With a lack of hyper-local weather infrastructure in addition to a volatile climate and weather relient population, the demand for our weather-of-things approach will be beneficial to extensive audiences across a number of use cases including both consumer and business applications. This is why ClimaCell has decided to open an APAC office, with a branch in India,” he said.

The Weather Assistant app provides real-time detailed forecasts and sends actionable alerts to users. For example, users will receive alerts such as “it will stop raining in Delhi’s Connaught Place in 17 minutes” or “it will start raining in 25 minutes in Mumbai’s Gateway of India”.

Also, the app provides users the flexibility to connect to their calendars and get updates and alerts. Therefore, if one has to attend an outdoor event during the week and the weather forecasts call for drizzles of rain, the app will send an alert to the user and to all the attendees so changes can be made.

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“We initially built Weather Assistant because even though there are plenty of existing weather apps on the market people were still having trouble making decisions about their daily schedule or upcoming plans based on the weather. Weather Assistant solves the problem by integrating people’s schedules and activities with hyper-local weather forecasts so people can better plan ahead,” said Effie Arditi, Chief Product Officer at ClimaCell.

Meanwhile, the weather technology firm also launched its APAC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai. According to Itach, the locations were selected in order to be “close to our customers in both commercial as well the governmental sector.”

“When we started ClimaCell three years ago, the APAC region was an area of the world we were most excited to work with,” said Shimon Elkabetz, CEO of ClimaCell.

With existing offices in Boston, Boulder, and Tel Aviv, the APAC office will support ClimaCell’s global expansion and existing demand in the region. The APAC team will be focused on developing and growing ClimaCell’s business, working closely with customers and strategic partners in the region. “The objectives of opening ClimaCell offices in India are sales, business development and customer service,” said Itach, who will be heading the offices..

When asked about the employee strength in the Indian APAC offices, Itach said, “We are currently expanding the team to support our growth in the Indian market. This will be built from industry experts with strong commercial and relevant technical background.”

In other developments, ClimaCell, in January, announced a strategic collaboration with Google Cloud offering free access to high resolution weather forecasting models in geographies, including India, which currently do not possess the services.

“The outputs will be made accessible through Google Cloud’s public dataset program. We have improved the forecasting resolution X5 in India,” he claimed, adding that ClimaCell’s models will be available to the public, including developers, scientists and business users alike.

The ClimaCell Bespoke Atmospheric Model (CBAM) India, collaborating with Google Cloud platform, will be provided at 2 km resolution and 15-minute timestep, and will provide a 48-hour forecast. It will be available through the Google Cloud Public Datasets program under the name: ClimaCell – CBAM India Weather Forecasts.





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