Stake sale raises funds to expand Indian weather watcher Skymet  
The German government’s InsuResilience Investment Fund has bought a 26.8% stake in Indian weather monitoring provider Skymet Weather Services. Skymet investors Omnivore Capital and DMGT sold partial stakes in the agri-risk solution provider for an undisclosed sum and will plough the proceeds back into the firm. The company manages one of India's biggest networks of automatic weather stations, presently numbering 6,000 AWS units, and can detect thunderstorm patterns in real time. Proceeds will be used to expand the network and to find new business in the climate analytics, weather data, crop measurement and disaster management sectors.

The company, however, did not disclose the deal size. Ernst & Young LLP acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Skymet for this transaction.

InsuResilience Investment Fund, formerly known as Climate Insurance Fund, is backed by KfW, a German government-owned development bank based in Frankfurt and is managed by Swiss-based impact investment manager BlueOrchard Finance.

The transaction saw two of Skymet’s existing investors Omnivore Capital and UK-based DMGT group partially sell their stakes. Omnivore is an impact venture fund and invests in startups from India developing breakthrough technologies for food, agriculture and the rural economy. DMGT manages a multinational portfolio of companies, with total revenues of almost £1.5 billion and has invested close to Rs25 crore in Skymet in 2014. Omnivore Partners, which invested Rs4.5 crore in the Series A round of funding for a 33% stake in the company in August 2011, also participated in the funding round of 2014.

Skymet has one of India’s largest network of automatic weather stations (currently 6,000 AWS units) and provides lightning detection network, which allows users to track thunderstorms in real time. The company said the latest round of funding will help it to expand its AWS network and secure new business in weather data, crop measurement, climate analytics and disaster management, thereby extending its outreach. Skymet is one of India’s largest weather monitoring and agri-risk solutions company, with expertise in measuring, predicting and limiting climate risk to agriculture. Skymet provides climate, weather and crop analytics to insurance companies, banks, agribusinesses and public sector institutions in India.

Skymet was started by its founder and CEO Jatin Singh in 2003 as a weather data service provider to television news channels and newspapers, which remained the company’s only business till 2006. The company has since then forayed into providing data to power companies and crop insurance claim settlement service. Crop insurance data has grown to be one of the biggest revenue earners for the company that is used for both claim settlement and other services. In a 2015 interview to Mint, Jatin Singh had shared plans to raise at least $20 million (about Rs127 crore) to go global with the company’s operations.