Tomorrow.io rendering. Photo: Tomorrow.io

Tomorrow.io announced an $87 million Series E funding round, along with the successful launch of its second satellite on this week’s SpaceX rideshare mission. Activate Capital led the round for the weather intelligence startup, and new investors include RTX Ventures, Seraphim, and Chemonics. 

Existing investors SquarePeg Capital, Canaan, ClearVision, JetBlue Ventures, and Pitango participated as well. 

This comes after SpaceX’s Transporter-8 mission on Monday included Tomorrow.io’s second satellite, R2, which is equipped with a Ka-band precipitation weather radar. The company’s first satellite, R1, launched on the Transporter-7 mission in April. 

The weather intelligence company said its future constellation of more than 20 satellites will bring breakthroughs in forecasting and climate observation with near real-time scans of precipitation and atmospheric profiles. This funding round will accelerate the constellation deployment, and other strategic initiatives. 

“We believe Tomorrow.io’s vertically integrated approach and satellite constellation will accelerate a paradigm shift in how millions around the globe use weather to adapt to the impacts of an evolving climate,” said Jon Guerster, partner at Activate Capital. 

Tomorrow.io started as a space startup, but decided to launch satellites to collect data from space the company said was otherwise not available. The company was part of the spree of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), but later paid to end the deal, citing the poor performance of stocks for other growth-stage companies.