Google buys Israeli BreezoMeter - a climate company engaged in predicting environmental hazards

The technology giant Google buys the Israeli BreezoMeter. Breezometer is a climate company founded in 2014 and engaged in predicting environmental hazards such as air pollution, pollen and fires. Its technology turns the information into insights and makes them accessible to consumers through apps, smart home devices, vehicles and more. Google has recently started adding air pollution indicators to its products such as the Pixel 6 mobile device and Google Maps and it is possible that it is interested in more comprehensive information than what it receives from its suppliers. Google confirmed the information.
Brizometer, which sits in Haifa, has so far raised $47 million according to the Crunchbase website, from the venture capital fund Entry Capital, Fortissimo and other investors. Its last fundraising round, amounting to $30 million, was in June 2021. According to LinkedIn, it employs about 110 people. Its founders are Ran Korber, who serves as CEO; Emil Fischer, VP of Technologies and Ziv Lautman, who currently does not hold a position in the company.
The company's clients include giant companies such as Apple, Dyson, L'Oreal, Bosch and more. According to Breezometer, "Every day more than 400 million users make use of the company's technology to make informed decisions to reduce their exposure to environmental hazards."
Breezometer collects information from approximately 11 million sources such as public and private sensors, satellites, user reports, transportation systems and more. Using this information, and applying machine learning algorithms and pollutant dispersion models, the environmental hazards are predicted.
Korber and Utman met when they both studied in the Faculty of Environmental Engineering at the Technion - Korber was in his last year of studies and Utman was in his first year. The idea to establish the project was born at a time when Korver was looking for an apartment to buy in the area, and wanted to get information about the quality of the weather there. "As a professional, Ran knew that there was data regarding air quality, but he encountered great difficulty in understanding it and analyzing it in real time," said Lautman in a previous interview with TheMarker. The two realized that it was a global problem and decided to establish a start-up to deal with it.
Google has been operating in Israel since 2005 and employs about 2,200 people here. Its first purchases were relatively small - the widget development company Lovepixies in early 2010 was sold for about 20 million dollars and the video company Quicky for about 10 million dollars. During 2013, it acquired the navigation company Wise in a huge deal of about one billion dollars and since then it has acquired the companies Vilostrata (cloud), Elasticfile (cloud) and Aluma (data) for amounts higher than 100 million dollars. In January of this year, Google purchased the information security company Simplify for about half a billion dollars
Google said in response: "We can confirm that Google has acquired Breezometer. Continuing our long-standing activities in the field such as Environmental Insights Explorer, Google Earth Engine and the Air View project, we are excited to work together and continue to provide environmental insights to people, organizations and policy makers around the world."