4490 Ventures has returned for the latest round for weather analytics service Understory, which has disclosed a total of $24.6m in funding to date.
US-based weather information and analytics service Understory secured $7.5m on Tuesday in a round led by 4490 Ventures, the VC firm co-founded by University of Wisconsin-Madison’s commercialisation arm, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.
The round also featured investment firm Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
Founded in 2012 as Winstruments, Understory runs more than 500 weather stations across five US metropolitan areas as well as a collaborative operation in South America with agrochemical producer Monsanto, owned by life sciences company Bayer.
The stations provide detailed meteorological and crop data for agriculture, insurance and utility clients as well as for education and academic research purposes.
Understory expects to have 5,000 sensors operational in the US by the end of 2019 and will use the capital to fund its international expansion plans.
The business raised $24.6m of equity funding altogether across five rounds held between 2014 and April this year, according to regulatory filings, though it is unclear whether the $5.7m obtained in April forms part of the latest round.
4490 Ventures co-led Understory’s $7.5m series A round in 2016 with Monsanto’s corporate venturing unit Growth Ventures. The round also included CSA Partners, True Ventures, RRE Ventures and SK Ventures.
True Ventures had previously led a $1.9m seed round for Understory in 2014 backed by RRE, Vegas Tech Fund, SK Ventures and angel investor Andrew Payne, adding to $18,000 and $50,000 in funding provided by startup accelerators Gener8tor and Bolt respectively at undisclosed dates.
