To Help Data Combat Wildfires, Splunk Invests in Zonehaven

San Francisco’s Splunk has invested in Zonehaven, a startup that uses data to aid fire departments and emergency response agencies in combating wildfires. The investment, of undisclosed size, marks the data company’s first from its $50 million social impact corporate venture capital fund. (The fund was announced last month.)

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Zonehaven began in 2018 in San Francisco to help government agencies isolate evacuation zones, create advanced fire modeling to simulate potential spread, and analyze weather data. The startup, according to its website, has worked with over a dozen fire chiefs and is building a prototyped interactive map to enable “two bay area counties.”

 Why Splunk?

Zonehaven is a cloud-based analytics application, fitting well into Splunk’s focus as a data analytics platform provider.

Splunk’s catchphrase, it seems, is “data-to-everything.” In other words, the company wants to enhance an organization using data everywhere.

Splunk is pulling the capital from one of its two recently-launched funds worth a combined $150 million. However beyond cash, Splunk is providing resources from its product, engineering, and business development teams. Zonehaven will use the funding to expand its team and invest in research, development, and product.

In a press release announcing the creation of its social impact fund, Splunk explained that the investment thesis would help the company “make good on our promise to improve society, solve problems and promote positive change with data.”

As a Bay Area startup investing in another Bay area startup looking to tackle a growing Bay area concern, Splunk’s first swing from its impact fund is close to home, quite literally.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.