Dubai: There’s money to be made in weather forecasts. If you think otherwise, just ask ArabiaWeather.
The company has just raised $5 million via venture capital funds, and rated among the biggest deals in the region this year. This round was led by Silicon Badia and Wamda Capital and includes the founding investor, Jabbar internet Group, and DASH Ventures.
It comes on top of another round of financing — fetching $2.1 million — done in the first quarter of this year.
So, why should there be so much interest in a company that provides information on the weather? And when any news channel on TV or online as well as dedicated weather apps from Yahoo and others can give out information.
But the founder of ArabiaWeather — which now has 40 million “unique users” region-wide — says where his business makes a difference is by going into the minutiae of weather predictions specific to the region. And which is based on a vast stream of data sources.
Being “hyper-local” is a trump card — “We are the only company that forecasts weather hazards such as sandstorms, dust storms, fog and thunderstorms not only for a city, but for specific areas and neighbourhoods,” said Mohammad Al Shaker, CEO.
“Our products run on proprietary algorithms and numerical models, which transform raw and isolated weather data points through supercomputers into processed, organised, and packaged weather information.
“This enables us to offer hyper-local — that means highly accurate and precise — weather forecasts for hundreds of thousands of locations across the Middle East.”
That means it can recognise climatic period and seasons such as ‘Fatrit Al Shamal’, ‘Al-Wasm’, and ‘Al-Marabai’niah’. The data is offered up for free on its website and mobile apps, in English and Arabic.
And work is on to get even more localised via crowdsourcing data through its user base.
All of which will help with the revenue stream — by packaging what it collects to corporate clients. “We provide business-relevant forecasts that are used by companies in particularly weather-affected industries to make operational decisions,” said Al Shaker. “They provide information on changing weather conditions so you can plan for any disruptions and reduce the impact of the weather on staff and resources, (and) minimising unnecessary operational downtime and costs.”
The target industries obviously include aviation and marine, as well as agriculture and oil and gas. The insurance sector is another that finds what ArabiaWeather offers useful, more so when global climate changes tend to throw out nasty surprises — floods, hurricanes and extended summers -ever so often.
“Companies engage us to provide decision-support solutions for their unique business needs,” said Al Shaker. “Take aviation as an example: Airports might be suffering from the impact of fog on flight operations, while airlines are searching for sandstorm and wind-shear solutions.
“Another example would be governments that are in need of hyper-local rain forecast in preparation for flash floods.
Our solutions are customised and packaged to meet specific requirements and assigned budgets. Most of our services are based on monthly recurring charges.”
The regular revenue stream is what could have got the latest round of investors interested.
It will soon debut ads on the platform. “Weather affects many decisions in our daily life — what we buy, where we go, what we eat, what we wear; sometimes it even affects how we feel,” the CEO added. “Marketers can use our weather analytics to target a specific group of consumers, appeal to a certain mood, create a desire or relate to a weather-affected activity.
“Additionally, we utilise our mobile app and website reach to provide hyper-local advertising solutions, which allows companies to target people in districts or neighbourhoods.”
Currently, it operates offices in Dubai and Amman, which is where the initial avatar of the business was launched. There are plans to add one in Riyadh.
But how close is ArabiaWeather to creating a sustainable business model for itself? Al Shaker declines to get into specifics, but says: “What I can tell is that ArabiaWeather has been experiencing rapid growth since its launch in 2010. Some of the most renowned venture capital firms in the region have recognised this, and Jabbar internet Group — the company behind maktoob.com — has fervently supported ArabiaWeather since the early days.”
Casting for the weather watchers
It’s not just businesses and industries that ArabiaWeather caters to.
The region has its legions of avid weather watchers, who are interested even in the slightest change in patterns.
These are the weather “aficionados”, according to Mohammad Al Shaker.
“We have nearly one million unique users who can be considered weather enthusiasts in Saudi Arabia alone,” said Al Shaker. “We are aiming to engage with this community in the Arab countries even more strongly in the near future.”
It is also expanding its video coverage and content and launching new specialised mobile apps targeted at this user base.
