Dryad, a German-based startup that provides solar-powered environmental sensor networks for ultra-early wildfire detection and forest monitoring, has raised €10.5 million in Series A funding. The investment round was led by eCAPITAL.
Additional investors include U.S. VC Toba Capital Marc Benioff’s TIME Ventures and strategic investor Semtech – a global supplier of high-performance analogue and mixed-signal semiconductors, advanced algorithms and the developer of the LoRa long range, low power wireless platform.
Funds utilisation
This round provides additional liquidity, depth and stability following the first equity seeding stage, which raised €1.8 million and included strong investment and operational support from STIHL Digital.
The proceeds of this round will enable Dryad to scale its team, accelerate its go-to-market strategy, and deliver on its mission to fight climate change and protect forests around the world.
Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO, Dryad, said: “Closing €10.5m in our Series A is a humbling and gratifying endorsement of our value proposition. With high levels of funding secured, and industry expertise to support us, we’ll not only be able to further scale our team and provide critical ultra-early detection, but also open the forestry market to Internet of Things (IoT) applications. We thank all our Series A and Seed investors for their trust in our market-leading technology, helping us deliver on our mission to fight climate change and protect our planet.”
Dr. Paul-Josef Patt, CEO, eCAPITAL, said: “Wildfires represent a huge global problem that has not been resolved effectively for too long. With Dryad’s highly scalable technology, we believe that from now on wildfires will be detected before they can cause damage. We are excited to lead Dryad’s Series A Financing Round and, together with our co-investors, support the company on its mission to save millions of hectares of forest, significantly reduce the threat for humans and animals and avoid the emission of over a billion tonnes of CO2.”
Alistair Fulton, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Semtech’s Wireless and Sensing Products Group, said: “We are extremely pleased to support Dryad’s mission to reduce CO2 emissions and protect forests around the world using LoRa® low power, long range RF technology. We believe that technology solutions like Dryad’s environmental sensor networks are crucial to creating a smarter, more sustainable planet.”
Uses IoT sensors to detect wildfire
The IoT-enabled sensors can help detect and alert the appropriate agencies to help prevent wildfires before they even happen. IoT has emerged as a prominent tool across industries like healthcare, transportation, industrial, retail, and more, helping connect devices and applications to streamline processes that help large groups of people.
Founded by Carsten Brinkschulte in 2020 in Germany, Dryad is an environmental IoT startup with the mission to develop a large-scale IoT network that allows public and private forest owners to monitor, analyse and protect the world’s largest, most remote forests. The initial focus is to develop a system for the ultra-early detection of wildfires.
Dryad partnered with Semtech and Swarm, a global satellite communications network developer, to create a system for ultra-early detection of wildfires. The company’s solar-powered sensing system, SIlvanet, uses AI to detect abnormal patterns of gas in the air.
