Setting the Standard for Seasonal Forecasting: Why Powerhouse Ventures Invested in Salient Predictions

The role of weather forecasting is heightened in our climate changed world, with a wide range of organizations increasingly dependent on forecasts to adjust and improve their strategic decisions. In some industries, like energy, agriculture, and insurance, the weather has an especially outsized effect on markets, and having accurate forecasts is mission-critical. While massive, multi-decade investments in short-term atmospheric models have yielded publicly available and accurate forecasts for the 0-14 day timeframe, there has been limited investment to date in improving performance in seasonal to subseasonal (S2S) forecasts.

Ranging from 2-52 weeks, S2S forecasts capture important weather trends several weeks in advance, showing variations in temperature, precipitation, irradiance, wind speed, and more. These forecasts are complementary to short-term forecasts: by understanding seasonal trends much farther in advance, decision makers are able to set a strategy that can then be refined by short-term forecasts. Despite the significant role that S2S forecasting plays in decision-making globally, today’s solutions lack the accuracy and granularity that has become the standard in short-term forecasting.?

Salient Predictions combines novel ocean and land-surface data with machine learning (ML) and climate expertise to deliver the world’s most accurate S2S weather forecasts from 2-52 weeks in advance. Bringing together world-leading experts in physical oceanography, climatology and the global water cycle, machine learning, and business growth, Salient helps enterprise clients improve resiliency, increase preparedness, and make better decisions in the face of a rapidly changing climate.

Seasonal forecasts drive business decisions globally and across industries.

• Globally, companies are already spending upwards of $20B per year on S2S forecasts, with growth expected to accelerate into $38B of spend in 2030.?
• Salient’s target market segments of energy, agriculture, finance, and logistics account for well over half of this overall spend, businesses where increasing the accuracy of S2S forecasts directly impacts topline revenue.?

The poor performance of seasonal weather models is only getting worse in our climate-changed world.

• Of the S2S forecasts available today, almost all simply repackage existing government forecasts, or extend physical atmospheric models from publicly available sources like National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
• While these physical atmospheric models are largely accurate and robust for the 0-14 day forecasting period, they are not built to account for trends beyond two weeks: extension is often a statistical process that fails to account for broader weather and climate factors.
• With the additional volatility caused by the climate crisis now and in the future, these types of forecasts will only continue to perform poorly.

An innovative solution that sets a new standard for the S2S market.

• Salient Predictions a first mover in building highly accurate S2S forecasts, with an innovative and proprietary approach that outperforms solutions on the market today.
• The core technology focuses on ocean systems and global water cycle observations, and for the first time correlates patterns of ocean salinity to land-based weather variables and events like temperature and rainfall. These relationships, when combined with other weather variables and run through ML models trained on many decades of data, enable Salient to predict crucial slower moving weather patterns that have huge implications for decision makers.
• The technology innovation is two-fold, combining the underlying ocean science research with highly sophisticated and ocean-specific deep learning and ML models to make the platform’s insights highly relevant, and actionable.?
• Salient Predictions’ business model today is enterprise SaaS contracts sold to large industry customers in their three key verticals of energy, agriculture, and insurance. But because Salient offers proprietary and complementary data that customers currently subscribe to, the company is well positioned to become a foundational data service that other platforms can tap into.

Powerhouse Ventures is proud to invest in Salient Predictions’ $5M seed round alongside Wireframe Ventures and Munich RE. We look forward to working with CEO Matt Stein , President Dr. Ray Schmitt , Chief Scientist Dr. Sam Levang , Lead Data Scientist Eric Schmitt and the entire Salient Predictions team to support critical energy and climate decisions through accurate seasonal forecasting.?

Special thanks to Shaandiin Cedar and Marie Thompson.