Episode 60: Shimon Elkabetz - Co-Founder and CEO of ClimaCell

Welcome to Episode 60 of The VentureFizz Podcast, the flagship podcast of your most-trusted source for startup and tech jobs, news, and insights! For this episode of our podcast, I interviewed Shimon Elkabetz, Co-Founder and CEO of ClimaCell. After 11 years in the Israeli Air Force, it was multiple near-death experiences that prompted Shimon’s passion for the weather. This passion ultimately led him and his co-founders to start ClimaCell, a company that has the very ambitious mission to map all of the weather data in the world. They are combining hyper-sensing technologies that use high-performance computing, which allows them to provide weather forecasts that are much more accurate. Examples of their customer are major companies like JetBlue, Delta, and Autodesk. The company recently raised $45M in Series B funding, and their total funding to date is now $65M. In this episode of our podcast, we cover: -Shimon’s experience in the Israeli Air Force and what it taught him about leadership. -The evolution and details behind the weather forecasting industry. -ClimaCell’s business and how they are working on building the world’s largest weather platform. -Advice for entrepreneurs on raising funding in the early days of a business in a unique market. -How he evaluates talent, and why founders should never compromise on the quality of people hired at their company. -Plus, a lot more. Lastly, if you like the show, please remember to subscribe to and review us on iTunes, or your podcast player of choice!