Brightband, founded by former Google executives, completes $10 million Series A financing, led by Prelude Ventures

Brightband, a startup founded by a former Google executive, aims to use artificial intelligence to improve weather forecasts. The company said Thursday that it has raised $10 million in Series A funding led by Prelude Ventures, with participation from investors including Bain Capital's Future Back Ventures and Slack co-founder Carl Henderson. The company was launched this summer by former Google executive Julian Green and three scientists to develop a paid product and an open source artificial intelligence forecasting model trained on raw weather observations. Brightband's co-founder, Amy McGovern, a professor of computer science and meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, said in an interview that Brightband will initially focus on predicting the behavior of extreme weather, including heat waves and tropical cyclones, a few days ahead of traditional forecasts. (Jinshi)