Google acquires Israeli climatech startup BreezoMeter for over $200 million
Google acquires Israeli climatech startup BreezoMeter for over $200 million
The Israeli startup aims to monitor air quality and improve people’s health by using atmospheric data that is acquired through multiple sensing stations, AI, and machine-learning algorithms
Google has acquired Israeli startup BreezoMeter, the tech giant confirmed to CTech on Tuesday. BreezoMeter aims to monitor air quality and improve people’s health by using atmospheric data that is acquired through multiple sensing stations, AI, and machine-learning algorithms that are trained to recognize and detect several different types of pollutants.
The cost of the acquisition wasn't revealed but Calcalist estimates it to be between $200-250 million.
"Following up on our many years of activity in sectors such as environmental insights, Google Earth Engine, Explorer, and the Air View project, we are excited to continue and provide environmental insights to people, organizations, and policymakers across the world,” Google told CTech.
BreezoMeter’s technology aims to monitor and report on air quality and inform people so that they may take precautionary steps ahead of time. The company was co-founded in 2014 by environmental engineer CEO Ran Korber and CTO Emil Fisher.
BreezoMeter raised a $30 million Series C funding round in June of 2021, taking its total funding to $45 million.
The round was led by Fortissimo Capital. Entrée Capital, which has backed BreezoMeter since its founding together with existing investors JumpSpeed Ventures, Launchpad Digital Health, AxessVentures, Goldacre Ventures and idinvest Partners, also participated in the round.
Companies, including AstraZeneca, Bosch, Dyson, Verizon Media, L'Oréal and hundreds of others, currently use BreezoMeter’s Air Pollution, Pollen and Fire APIs to deliver air quality recommendations to consumers through their mobile apps, smart home IoT devices, cars and other connected experiences.
“Air quality testing has been available since the early 1900s, and unfortunately the sensors we rely on have limited coverage,” Korber once explained to CTech in an interview.
According to Korber, sensors in Israel are spread far apart, and are usually only able to detect one type of air pollutant, while in the U.S. they are only available in major cities, but those who live in rural areas have no way of checking their air quality.
The company has developed a technology that utilizes machine learning and AI that take into account any and all pollutants emitted from any given activity.
“It also collects data about traffic congestion, and can detect any type of atmospheric pollutant, whether that comes from wildfires, power plant emissions, etc.
“We started ahead of time back in 2014, and started to see people’s health awareness grow, but Covid-19 definitely accelerated the demand of our product. With that said, we’ve had leading enterprises working with us in 2016 and 2017, so when the pandemic hit, health-awareness, environmental stressors, and how they might impact health became larger concerns,” he said.
“Our goal is to make people informed of their environment, understand their impact on the environment, and educate them on how and when to use medicine and health products properly."
