German startup OroraTech raises €25M to scale wildfire early warning system
by Siôn Geschwindt · TNWMunich-based startup OroraTech has secured €25mn in funding to scale up its AI-powered wildfire detection system.
Korys, the investment arm of the Colruyt’s — a Belgian noble family — led the funding round. The EU’s Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF) also chipped in, alongside existing investor Bayern Kapital.
OroraTech will use the fresh funding to fuel the next phase of its growth. The company looks to expand into global markets beyond Europe, and keep refining its technology.
OroraTech’s so-called Wildfire Solution collates imagery from its own probes, as well as over 20 other Earth observation satellites. The startup has trained an AI algorithm to scan these images and automatically detect signs of wildfires. The system can also predict how they will spread.
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A spin-out from the Technical University of Munich, OroraTech has so far launched two satellites. The most recent of these blasted off into low Earth orbit upon a SpaceX Falcon 9 in June last year.
Battling the blaze
As climate change accelerates, wildfires are spreading faster, burning longer, and raging more intensely. More than 500,000 hectares of land across the EU burnt last year — an area twice the size of Luxembourg.
Faced with this mounting problem, authorities are increasingly turning to high-tech solutions.
In June, Greece’s Ministry of Digital Governance awarded OroraTech a €20mn contract to build a satellite-based early warning system for wildfires.
The national defence system will consist of four thermal satellites and a network of ground sensors and processing services. OroraTech will develop it in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and several Greek universities and companies.
Greece’s national wildfire system will go into full operations once OroraTech has got its entire constellation of 100 shoebox-sized satellites in orbit, which is scheduled for 2026.
“However, we will be delivering data to Greece immediately with our current network of thermal platforms, including our Wildfire Solution platform,” a company spokesperson previously told TNW.
OroraTech’s third satellite, FOREST-3 (pictured top), is scheduled to launch next month. The company is currently testing eight new thermal-imaging satellites, which it plans to roll out in early 2025.
OroraTech joins an emerging cohort of “firetech” startups that have popped up in recent years.
Dryad Networks, a German company, has created an “internet of trees” sensor network that “smells” fires in the forest, before they burn out of control. Other ventures include BurnBot, which has built a robot that performs prescribed burns, and Rain, which wants to deploy autonomous helicopters to fight fires.
In Europe, several fire brigades have been trialling long-range drones like those built by Dutch scaleup Avy to detect wildfires early and help firefighters on the ground track the blaze in real time. Researchers in Portugal are even developing a drone that douses flames from above.
As climate change worsens, we’ll likely see all kinds of technologies being deployed to battle the blaze, ultimately saving lives.
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