A Q&A with Alex Kubicek, CEO & Co-Founder, Understory Weather
Understory Weather has joined the Greentown Labs community this summer! We sat down with Co-founder Alex Kubicek to discover how the company originated and what brought them to our quirky community in Somerville.
Alex Kubicek was the world expert on hail growth before he started a weather data analytics company. Originally, he and his cousin entered some business competitions, intending to develop a residential weather station–an individual consumer product for makers, hobbyists and weather geeks to collect hyper-local weather data in their own backyards. They soon discovered that while people wanted the data, customers could not really do anything with it at such a small scale.
That’s when the winds shifted and they focused on becoming a business-to-business model. Insurance and enterprise were excited and highly interested in potential applications of being about to analyze hyperlocal weather data over time. And in this model, Alex makes a point of noting, they were able to scale up the design, make the product more robust, and explore a broader range of applications.
The company participated in the accelerator Bolt, and conducted a pilot study in Kansas City. The hardware gets installed on billboards, cell towers, and buildings to collect data on storms as they move through different cities. The idea is that Understory collects, analyzes and packages that data for customers, such as insurance companies and emergency response agencies, who can use it to refine and strategically plan their disaster response. Understory owns and operates the data, and their customers can access it through a subscription model.
Three months ago they started the fundraising process and were successful in raising $2 million from venture firms, which has helped them move into the next stage of deploying in more cities, other than Kansas City. The plan is to gradually scale up with each deployment, and demonstrate the reliability and repeatability of the technology.
Right now the company is a team of 6 members, but with the intent of growing in the near future to support the expansion of their weather sensors through more cities.
So what brings Understory to Greentown?
Being able to scale up and down as necessary. To build and work under the same roof. It’s surprisingly quiet here, and the Greentown membership to Brooklyn Boulders Climbing Gym is a nice perk. We’re looking forward to growing here.