Meteomatics, a Switzerland-based company focused on technologies to improve weather forecasting and modeling, has received a strategic investment from the venture investment unit of Lockheed Martin
[LMT] to scale the small company’s technology and expand into new markets and industries.
The value of the investment by Lockheed Martin Ventures was not disclosed. Lockheed Martin said that Meteomatics’ technology is useful for U.S. and allied military operations.
“Lockheed Martin Ventures identifies companies with transformative technologies that serve the evolving needs of our customers and missions,” Chris Moran, general manager of the venture unit, said in a statement. “Meteomatics’ weather intelligence has the potential to give the U.S. and its allies a better understanding of the dynamic environments in which assets and personnel operate, both improving operational effectiveness and reducing risk.”
Meteomatics has more than 130 employees and has operations in the U.S., Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Some of the company’s customers in the aerospace and defense space include Airbus Group, the European Union’s Frontex, U.S. Special Operations Command, Thales, European aviation organization Eurocontrol, and RTX’s [RTX] Pratt & Whitney segment.
Meteomatics has a weather model of 1 kilometer that updates every hour, which compares with what the company said are typical government and commercial models that have resolutions of 10 to 50 kilometers and update three to four times a day. Meteomatics said its data provides weather detection and forecasting in low-level airspace.
Another of the company’s technologies is the Meteodrone, a small unmanned vertical take-off-and-landing aircraft that can fly up to 20,000 feet to help with precision forecasting in the mid to lower atmosphere.
The company began operations in the U.S. in 2023 with the first Meteodrone operated by the GrandSky unmanned aircraft system business park in North Dakota.