Maxwell Brodie vividly recalls the destructive wildfire he experienced as a kid growing up in the interior of British Columbia.
One night in 2003, lightning struck a tree at around 4 a.m., sparking a massive blaze that scorched Okanagan Mountain Park. Winds picked up, the skies turned orange and more than 30,000 people evacuated from his hometown. Brodie remembers helping his dad attach a soaker hose to protect their cedar roof from falling ash.
The experience would inspire Brodie nearly two decades later to launch a software startup that gives autonomous helicopters and other aircraft the capability to perceive and suppress wildfires.
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Founded in 2019, Rain operates out of an old traffic control tower in the former Naval Air Station Alameda. The company, which has 15 employees, raised $9.7 million in seed financing led by venture capital firm DBL Partners.
Rain has worked with Lockheed Martin company Sikorsky and with fire officials in Orange County in the hopes of bringing its technology into operational use.
“When there’s that partnership between the innovators in the fire community and technologists, that’s what opens up entirely new tools, technologies and markets,” chief executive Brodie said.
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