Stephanie Douse 
Web3 weather network WeatherXM has raised $5 million in a seed funding round led by Placeholder VC. The funding saw some other investors in the round including Metaplanet, ConsenSys Mesh, and Protocol Labs, among others.
A $5 million seed round was secured by Weather XM, a weather network that uses cryptocurrency incentives to increase forecast accuracy. Placeholder VC was the round’s lead investor.
Other investors in the round, according to a news release, included Metaplanet, ConsenSys Mesh, Protocol Labs, and Border Capital.
The $420 personal weather stations from WeatherXM started shipping earlier this year, and the company says it has more than 4,000 pre-orders for the devices that will be available in the third quarter.
These stations enable owners to operate weather stations and receive compensation for gathering and verifying data. According to the business, this decentralized internet of things technology should improve forecast accuracy for regions without weather infrastructure.
The CEO of WeatherXM, Manolis Nikiforakis, stated in a statement that “the present weather data gathering and forecasting mechanism is mainly designed, funded, and controlled by governments.”
We all benefit from it every day, but it’s far from perfect because each use case has completely distinct data gathering requirements, and frequently, government goals are not in line with citizens’ wants.
The project is still in its early phases and is in beta right now. The Polygon testnet still hosts its token awards, and a mainnet launch is being readied.
It’s not just WeatherXM that has recently raised money to develop a decentralized IoT business model. Peaq, a web3 car network, raised $6 million earlier this week in a round that was mostly headed by Fundamental Labs.
Helium, a decentralized wireless network, raised $200 million earlier this year from investors including Tiger Global and FTX Ventures.