Investor News Hub
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9.30.23
Dear Investors,
With summer behind us and the busy holiday season approaching, we wanted to update you on our continued promising mission and business trajectory.
Financial Performance:
Most importantly, sales and our bottom line continue progressing as we hoped and projected. We are maintaining a pace of year-over-year sales growth greater than 25% and have operated at a slight profit since the start of the 2nd quarter. We continue to manage our expenses prudently while strategically investing in areas that will drive sustained growth. We believe that investing in even greater growth is likely the best path for maximizing the company’s long-term value, and we are looking at various options to help us with that investment. It is exciting to see how our recent progress has opened up multiple possibilities.
Exploding User Base:
Related to our growth in revenue is an increase in the number of individuals and businesses that utilize our products. Our innovative weather-monitoring technology continues to resonate with individuals, households, and businesses alike, and the installed base of the Tempest network has swelled to over 65,000 active nodes. Likewise, our Lifestyle apps and business offerings continue to gain new users.
Product Enhancements:
We expect growth to accelerate in the future, partially due to our new product variations. Our engineering and design teams have been diligently working to enhance the Tempest experience, and we are about to roll out a new remote cellular-based hub that has received an overwhelmingly positive response from field testers and early customers. Our new products illustrate our commitment to delivering the best-in-class weather monitoring for any environment as part of powerful decision solutions.
Partnerships and Expansion:
We are constantly forming new strategic relationships and enhancing existing partnerships. Here are just a few updates illustrating our progress toward new heights.
- – We recently closed an agreement with Action News Jax in Jacksonville, Florida, as part of our Broadcast TV and Media Partner Program, and we expect many additional new program partners before the end of the year.
- – We executed an agreement with air quality monitoring company PurpleAir, with broad implications for future integrations and cross-promotion.
- – Our collaboration with Disney to launch the Tempest Weather Safety & Science Kit and expand the network of Tempests at Disney parks has allowed us to tap into their extensive network and powerful brand, allowing us to reach an even wider audience.
- – Our international expansion plan, as outlined this spring, has just launched. October will be our first month selling Tempest Systems to UK customers and shipping directly from our UK warehouse. This is a big milestone, and we plan to follow suit in several other countries in the coming months.
Thanks to you all for your belief in our vision and for co-investing in our success! We welcome any questions, insights, or feedback you may have. Please reach out anytime to team@weatherflow.com.
Buck Lyons, CEO
WeatherFlow-Tempest
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5.10.23
Dear Investors,
Our second StartEngine campaign wrapped last month, successfully generating $1.6M in investment, which will help move the company forward. With the campaign behind us, we will again be providing company updates by email while also posting that news here. (We recommend bookmarking this page for future reference.) While new company updates will no longer post to our StartEngine campaign page, you may still view our complete campaign page here. We also suggest you sign up for our newsletter if you are not yet subscribed.
We just completed our annual financial statements for 2022, which are now available here. Those results were also part of our Form C-AR, which was recently posted with the SEC. The submitted results were consistent with the preliminary results posted to our StartEngine campaign, as summarized in February (below). We are also off to a good start for the year, as we finished off the first four months with 40% year-over-year revenue growth. We are reducing our burn and moving closer to profitability as we had hoped.
For those who did not follow all our updates posted during our StartEngine Campaign, here are a few highlights:
- Tempest + Rachio Named Best New Smart Devices of CES 2023: WeatherFlow-Tempest CEO Buck Lyons attended CES in January with the team from Rachio to present their smart watering integration. The products work in sync with the Tempest Weather System used as the weather source for the Rachio Smart Sprinkler Controller, informing features like Rain Skip, Wind Skip, Freeze Skip, and more.
- WeatherBug-Tempest Network Experiencing an Explosive Start: As part of an integration with WeatherBug, the app’s 15 million unique monthly users are encouraged to buy a Tempest, generating well over 650 Tempest sales since it started rolling out in late December 2022.
- Other Tempest Partnerships: We announced new or expanded partnerships with Disney, Amazon, and Clemson University over the first quarter, and these are only the beginning. We believe that integrated partnerships with many different large organizations will help fuel Tempest as our products become invaluable tools for homes and businesses.
- Tempest Ambassador Program sets new sales record: Tempest is also partnering with individuals and small organizations. In February, our Ambassador Program achieved a substantial milestone, with meteorologist and influencer Ryan Hall generating nearly $100,000 in sales in his first three days as an official Tempest Ambassador!
- New Production Center Nears Completion: As an expansion of our successful collaboration with Embry-Riddle, we will soon share space with the university in the new Advanced Technology and Manufacturing Center.
Please direct questions specific to your investment to team@weatherflow.com.
Buck Lyons, CEO
WeatherFlow-Tempest
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2.22.23
Dear Investors,
Since launching our second equity crowdfunding campaign on StartEngine in January, we have been pleased with the response! Our campaign recently surpassed the $1M mark ($3.5M combined raised on StartEngine), and we are humbled to see many of our original investors buy additional shares. Thank you for your continued support!
Under guidance from Start Engine, we have been providing some highlights from 2022 financial results on our Campaign ahead of our complete 2022 year-end financial statements, which will be prepared and available to all investors by April 30, 2023. Here is a summary of the information shared in StartEngine:
For the year ended Dec 31, 2022, we grew annual revenues by about 12% to $9.3m for the year despite serious supply problems in the first several months. After some decline in revenue over the first few months of the year, we have grown year-over-year monthly revenues by more than 25% since May.
Based on the foundation put in place, especially our recent partnerships, we believe we can accelerate growth above our recent strong growth rate. More than 25% of total revenue was from ARR, and that percentage represents an increase over last year. We expect continued strong growth in ARR during 2023.
Our cash burn from operations was approximately $200k per month, more than we initially projected. Expenses ramped more rapidly than revenue, partially because the cost of hiring and retaining personnel escalated considerably during the year. In addition to continuing strong revenue growth in 2023, we are optimistic that growth in expenses can be held in check. We expect our monthly burn rate to fall below $100k per month by the end of this first quarter.
Per SEC Regulations, we will provide Financial Statements as part of the SEC Form C-AR by April 30, 2023. We will also post that information in this investor section.
Buck Lyons, CEO
WeatherFlow-Tempest
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12.16.22
Dear Investors,
As we near the end of 2022, it’s clear that we will finish the year with continued strong revenue growth. Our year-over-year monthly sales gains have exceeded 25% since May, when we completed our Rachio partnership and, at the same time, reached important supply management goals. We think Tempest is well on its way to becoming one of the world’s biggest weather technology brands.
In addition to implementing the partnership with WeatherBug we announced in October, we have also recently expanded our partnership with Disney and expect that agreement to have a meaningful effect on the Company in 2023 and beyond. We also launched the Tempest Lightning Network™ (TLN), a partnership with TOA Systems LLC that creates a global detection system to deliver critical lightning data and alerts. Learn more about TLN here.
To continue to finance our growth, we recently executed an agreement with StartEngine for a follow-up campaign to our successful previous effort, which we expect to launch at the beginning of 2023. We hope all our current investors will consider investing more funds, and we are working with StartEngine to make such an investment compelling. We think 2023 will be a great year for the company as we take advantage of foundational elements put in place during the current year of 2022.
Note that as a requirement for a new StartEngine campaign, SetApart Financial just completed an audit of our 2021 financial results. There were no substantive changes to previous reports. Nonetheless, the audited statements have replaced the compiled results posted in April here.
Thank you again for your support. Please watch your email inbox for more updates on Start Engine and other news soon.
Buck Lyons, CEO
WeatherFlow-Tempest
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10.27.22
Dear Investors,
On October 25, we executed a key strategic partnership and data licensing agreement with WeatherBug (GroundTruth Inc), operators of the second most popular weather app. We are hopeful this agreement will prove to be another important milestone in growing revenues and establishing our business. We expect to begin seeing revenue from this agreement in December and believe it will have a significant impact on 2023 revenue.
We are also excited to report that we continue to maintain supply of our flagship Tempest Systems in quantities needed to deliver on sales opportunities and our trend of year-over-year growth exceeding 25% since our partnership with Rachio was announced in June has continued. We are hoping to finish the year with this continued strong trend.
Buck Lyons
CEO
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08.10.22
Dear Investors,
As announced via press release and on our StartEngine campaign page, we executed a key strategic partnership and cross-selling agreement with Rachio Inc. on May 30th. This agreement had an immediate impact on June sales, as we finished the first six months of the year with an overall gain in revenue vs the same period in 2021. We are optimistic we can effectively manage the global supply chain issues affecting all businesses and continue to grow revenues above 2021 levels by executing additional strategic partnerships and pushing other effective product marketing programs
Per the equity crowdfunding regulations enforced by the SEC and the recommendations of our advisors at StartEngine, we will be releasing detailed Financial Statements reflecting 2022 results in April 2023. These statements will be posted here and with the SEC via Form C-AR at that time. We will continue to provide some additional information on financial results between now and next April, including a high-level summary of annual results in February 2023, similar to last year’s report in February 2022 (see below). We will continue to provide guidance on key company developments and revenue growth here from time to time.
Buck Lyons
CEO
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8.05.22
Dear StartEngine Investors,
As a quick reminder, you can direct specific investment questions to team@weatherflow.com.
We’ve received a few questions from StartEngine investors about where to find your investment documentation. Your StartEngine dashboard contains your subscription agreement (not a certificate), which documents your ownership. Consistent with StartEngine requirements, all WeatherFlow-Tempest shares are “uncertificated” (book-entry shares), and you can use the StartEngine platform to track and manage your ownership.
Michele Redmon
Marketing & Communications Director
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05.15.22
Dear Investors,
Our Form C-AR was filed with SEC on April 29th as planned. Our 2021 Year End Financial Results have also been posted to this investor section of our website. 2020-2021 Financial Statements
Buck Lyons
CEO
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02.14.22
Dear Investors,
We recently completed a successful third year as an independent business, and I am sharing a short note on our performance. This report discusses our financial picture at a general level, and detailed results in the form of our 2021 financial statements will be released on April 30, 2022.
Our financial statement process is slightly different this year due to equity crowdfunding regulations enforced by the SEC and the recommendations of our advisors at StartEngine. Our accounting firm, Patrick Scheufler Accountancy, will complete a review of our statements before April 30, and these statements will be posted with the SEC via Form C-AR after our StartEngine campaign ends on April 29.
Pending release of our financial statements, here is some general information on our results. We received over $8m in revenue in 2021. This compares with recognized revenue of $2.9m in 2019 and $6.5m in 2020 (includes $814,000 in 2019 cash receipts; see audited financials). Our cash receipts of $3.7m in 2019, $5.7m in 2020, and $8.1m in 2021, demonstrate year-over-year growth of 51% and 45%, illustrating our substantial and steady progress. We are especially pleased with this past year’s result, given the challenges with the global supply chain. We believe our strong team and our relationship with our Shenzhen-based contract manufacturer were the keys to this success.
Our cash burn from operations was approximately $110k a month on average in 2021, slightly higher than in 2020 and slightly more than projected. Nonetheless, our burn was lower as a percent of revenue. Especially with the many challenges 2021 presented, we are quite pleased with our results relative to our level of investment. Since July 2021, we have raised $930k in convertible notes and more than $1.65m from the sale of common stock via the StartEngine platform. This additional capital is allowing us to increase our rate of growth, and we expect to continue to invest in growth as long as we believe that investment is warranted and we have the investment capital to pursue.
With the StartEngine campaign still active, we are advised to be especially conservative with our communications on expected future results. And, with the current global environment, predictions are difficult to make. Nonetheless, opportunities abound, and we are extremely optimistic about an increase in our rate of growth in 2022. We will have some announcements soon to illustrate our process, strategy, and success.
Buck Lyons
CEO
This note from 2/14/22 was updated on 4/1/22 with the correct description of our financial statement preparation process and filing with the SEC. Our process now reflects the advisement to us from StartEngine on best practices.