WindBorne Systems, founded in 2019 by a team of Stanford engineers, designs, builds, and operates a global constellation of long-duration smart weather balloons. Headquartered in Redwood Shores, California, the company addresses the observation gap in atmospheric data collection - 85% of the atmosphere remains effectively unobserved by traditional means. Its Atlas constellation is the world's largest balloon network, collecting atmospheric profiles from remote oceans and extreme environments where conventional instrumentation is sparse or prohibitively expensive.
The company's flagship Global Sounding Balloon (GSB) is an autonomous, 1.2 kg system capable of sustained flight for over 40 days. Compared to traditional radiosondes, it delivers roughly 10 times more data per dollar over land and 150 times more per dollar over oceans. This data feeds into WeatherMesh, WindBorne's AI-based forecasting model, which has become the most accurate medium-range global forecast model in the world - surpassing both Google DeepMind's GraphCast and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' physics-based models. WeatherMesh was named one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2025.
WindBorne's core technical domains span autonomous flight systems, atmospheric data collection, AI/ML forecasting, and weather technology. The company serves clients across government and military, energy trading, and utilities sectors, where improved weather forecasting carries significant operational and financial implications.
