HydroPoint Secures $11.9 Million in Venture Funding

PETALUMA, Calif. – HydroPoint Data Systems announced Tuesday that it has closed $11.9 million in first-round venture funding for the company. The company’s investors include The Toro Co., Shea Ventures, a division of Shea Homes, Raisin Capital, Monitor Venture Partners, Firelake Strategic Technology Fund, Scenic Ventures and private individuals.

The funding will accelerate HydroPoint’s nationwide rollout of WeatherTRAK irrigation management solutions for commercial and residential landscapes. Earlier this year, HydroPoint established a network of resellers to gain sales representation across the country. HydroPoint’s direct sales force and channel partners will roll out the company’s new products and services, which expand the proven WeatherTRAK solution with centralized online management and enhanced irrigation programming capabilities.

“From day one HydroPoint and the WeatherTRAK solution made good business sense to us as investors,” said John Morrissey, senior vice president of Shea Ventures and J.F. Shea Co. “WeatherTRAK is a proven, cost-effective solution that provides short- and long-term value for our new home customers and their communities. WeatherTRAK allows homeowners to maintain their landscapes with more efficient water use, and it also helps the larger community because it conserves water and limits the negative effects of over-watering, like erosion and runoff.”

With WeatherTRAK, residential, commercial and professional customers gain a win, win, win solution that protects plant health, conserves water and also provides new business opportunities for the green industry. WeatherTRAK is the only irrigation management solution that continually adjusts irrigation based on real-time, weather-based evapotranspiration (ET) data. The solution includes the WeatherTRAK ET Everywhere service, which wirelessly broadcasts ET updates to WeatherTRAK controllers, automatically triggering adjustments to watering programs that have been customized for landscape-specific parameters such as plant, soil and sprinkler type.

Multi-year, independent field studies of WeatherTRAK by several national and regional organizations including the California Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Municipal Water District of Orange County, among others, show that WeatherTRAK can save as much as 59 percent of outdoor water and reduce harmful runoff by up to 71 percent, while reliably maintaining and even improving plant health.