- Macedonian startup EarthCare.ai ended the year with a bang, and started 2025 with an even bigger one, managing to raise $350K in pre-seed funding.
- Led by South Central Ventures, the funding was supported by the Zephyr angel network.
- The company, which is part of the Techstars program, is developing a global climate intelligence platform.
Annually, the climate crisis is causing global damage of over $300 billion, with each year marked by 15% increase in damages. EarthCare.ai offers a solution to mitigate damages by analyzing large amounts of climate data from satellite imagery, radar information and weather stations.
According to co-founder Gorjan Jovanovski, the platform offers practical and easy-to-understand analyses, bringing immediate value to companies with just few clicks.
“Our goal is to help companies incorporate relevant climate data into their business strategies, providing them with detailed analyses based on 30 years of historical data and models that predict climate risks 75 years into the future,” said Jovanovski.
The idea behind EarthCare.ai started with the MyAir – an app that sends notifications about air pollution in Macedonia. With over 1 million downloads, the app stood out as one of the most popular mobile apps in the country. In 2019, however, MyAir rebranded itself as AirCare and began conquering the global market.
This is the second major investment for EarthCare.ai. In May 2023, the startup received an investment of 120,000 US dollars and became part of the TechStars startup program. Unlike AirCare, EarthCare.ai is aimed at businesses, and instead of individual citizens, the focus here is on companies and the the way businesses access data about the environment and climate change impact.
The platform simplifies access to data and predictions about the impact of climate change, not excluding the dangers of floods, forest fires, storms and other natural disasters. The idea is to facilitate the implementation of various solutions and use that data to help reduce the negative impact on the climate. Excel democratized the analysis of numerical data, EarthCare.ai does the same with climate data, says Gorjan in an interview with IT.MK, August 2024 .
Influenced by the fires in Macedonia, the August update introduced in EarthCare.ai functionality for visualizing fires and earthquakes.
Application in various industries
EarthCare.ai is already attracting attention from industries delving into energy, insurance, and consulting. The platform allows users to access climate analytics for any location via a web interface, PDF reports, or API integration. Multinational companies, such as Germany’s Uniper, are using the technology to better manage their energy production by taking into accounts the weather conditions.
“When building climate risk modeling solutions, the scope, availability, and standardization of climate data are major hurdles. EarthCare.ai helps us overcome them by combining 30 years of historical data, cutting-edge forecasting models, and years of experience. The team is well-positioned to help users across industries better understand climate risks and adjust their investment and business decisions accordingly,” said Tatjana Zabasu Mikuž, Partner at South Central Ventures.
The EarthCare.ai team is lead by co-foundrs Gorjan Jovanovski and Dragan Gelevski. Their previous product, the AirCare app, is used by millions of users worldwide. With the new funding, the company plans to expand the team and increase its market presence. We spoke with Gorjan Jovanovski about what this means for EarthCare.ai and how the funds will be used.
What made you raise additional funds?
As a startup grows, so do its costs. If you want to grow quickly, external capital is one way to achieve that. But it’s not just about the money. With this round we also welcomed a lot of experts from South Central Ventures and Zephyr. Their connections and their knowledge are reasons enough as to why we chose to go the VC capital route.
How is EarthCare.ai progressing, was 2024 a good year in terms of customers?
To be perfectly blunt, 2024 did no start the way we hoped. We wanted to try our luck in the insurance industry, but, after long meetings and pilot projects, we realized that their traditional approach would not work well for a new startup. The sales cycles were simply too long, and we had to reposition ourselves in the market. It then dawned on us (literally) that the energy industry was an untapped market. That reorientation was a blessing in disguise and, by the end of 2024, it allowed us to work with large global energy companies like Uniper! So, it’s safe to say that 2024 was not only a year of learning, but also a year of great successes!
How do you plan to use the investment?
Our main goal will be to expand the team. The welcoming of additional experts will help with the development of the climate section, the way huge amounts of data are processes, as well as with sales. We will soon start opening new positions in our company, and we hope that all the climate experts in our country will be able to become part of our team!
