Rainbow Weather secures $5.5 million to enhance real-time weather forecasting.

      Warsaw, Poland, 26 January 2026 – Rainbow Weather has secured $5.5 million in seed funding to advance short-term, high-precision weather forecasting, an area the company believes is currently underrepresented in the industry. This climate tech startup, based in Warsaw, specializes in delivering hyperlocal, minute-by-minute forecasts, concentrating on conditions expected in the next few hours rather than days ahead.

      The funding round included a group of investors, among them Yuri Gurski, the founder of Flo Health, recognized as one of Europe’s prominent consumer tech unicorns. Rainbow Weather’s primary offering is a mobile app that provides four-hour precipitation forecasts derived from the exact time a user checks the weather. When the app is opened at 3:51 AM, it will predict the weather conditions until 7:51 AM, refreshing every 10 minutes and mapping down to a one-square-kilometre grid. This level of timing and spatial accuracy distinguishes it from standard weather applications.

      Most leading providers, such as AccuWeather, Apple Weather, and The Weather Company, continue to utilize methods that either oversimplify cloud movement or rely on large-scale numerical models intended for longer-term forecasts. Rainbow Weather argues that both strategies falter when weather conditions shift rapidly.

      “Many traditional forecasting services depend on optical flow for short-term precipitation predictions. This method is fast but oversimplifies by treating clouds merely as moving shapes without grasping atmospheric physics,” stated Alexander Matveenko, co-founder of Rainbow Weather. “Another category of services employs comprehensive mathematical models that integrate physical principles, but these models are so cumbersome and slow that they cannot quickly adapt to real-time weather changes.”

      Rainbow Weather occupies a middle ground, leveraging machine learning to combine high-resolution data from radar, satellites, weather stations, and even smartphone barometers. By integrating these diverse sources, the company asserts that it can mitigate the noise and bias present in individual datasets, enabling quicker forecast generation than traditional methods.

      Currently, the app emphasizes short-term precipitation forecasts but has also branched out to include wildfire and hurricane tracking, a feature prompted by the Palisades fire in Los Angeles. This extension illustrates a broader goal of evolving into a real-time risk awareness tool rather than merely predicting rain.

      The new funding will facilitate an expansion of Rainbow Weather’s forecasting capabilities from four hours to 24 hours, incorporate additional weather parameters beyond precipitation, and enhance its B2B offerings.

      The commercial weather intelligence market is anticipated to experience steady growth over the next decade, driven by sectors requiring precise, near-term predictions, including logistics, agriculture, aviation, and drone operations.

      Rainbow Weather reports that it has surpassed one million app installs and has introduced APIs targeted at companies that “cannot afford to make mistakes regarding weather.” Additionally, it has formed a partnership with an undisclosed long-term forecasting firm, providing near-term data to enhance broader climate models.

      The founding team boasts a successful history in applied AI. CEO Yuriy Melnichek previously started AIMatter, which was acquired by Google, and developed consumer applications subsequently purchased by Pinterest and Farfetch. Matveenko previously sold mapping firm MapData to Mapbox.

      In addition to its commercial offerings, the team operates weatherindex.ai, an open-source project assessing short-term precipitation forecasts from major providers in real-time. This tool compares live forecasts with verified airport weather reports using established accuracy metrics, representing a rare approach in an industry typically lacking transparent benchmarking.

      For Rainbow Weather, this commitment to transparency forms part of its value proposition. The company believes that as climate volatility escalates, users and businesses will prioritize immediate weather forecasts over next week’s predictions and will rely on the trustworthiness of those forecasts.

      About Rainbow Weather:

      Founded in 2021 by Yuriy Melnichek, who previously created AIMatter (acquired by Google), along with the video editing app Vochi (acquired by Pinterest) and fashion marketplace Wanna (acquired by Farfetch), and Alexander Matveenko, a co-founder of the AI mapping startup MapData sold to Mapbox in 2017, Rainbow Weather is a next-generation climate tech startup focused on ultra-accurate short-term forecasting.