Built for Fast-Moving Weather, Trusted for High-Stakes Decisions
Purpose-built for Southeast Asia's fast-moving tropical weather, with every forecast validated against the ground truth
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Trusted by leaders from various industries
Built for the Tropics, Not the Textbook
Pluvia was built on a simple reality: weather in Southeast Asia does not behave like textbook models assume. Fast-forming storms, sudden downpours, and hyperlocal rainfall patterns make conventional forecasting less useful when decisions need to be made at street level.
That is why we built Pluvia for this region first raining on Southeast Asia’s weather behaviour, validating against what actually happens on the ground, and focusing on forecasts that are meant to support real operational decisions.
Why we started Pluvia
What began as research into tropical weather systems quickly revealed a deeper gap. The teams most affected by rainfall — from field operations to urban infrastructure — often had access to forecasts, but not forecasts designed for the speed, variability, and local complexity of the environments they worked in.
So we set out to build something more useful: forecasting tools shaped by regional data, informed by multiple observation sources, and tested against real outcomes. What started as a scientific challenge became a mission to make weather intelligence more practical, more trusted, and more actionable across Southeast Asia.
Principles behind every forecast
Your nowcast is only as good as the science behind it — how we build, what we ship, and how we talk about it.
Accuracy over hype
We measure against what happened on the ground. If a forecast is not reproducible, it does not ship.
Built for the tropics
Our models are designed for fast-forming tropical rainfall, convective storms, and the local variability of Southeast Asia.
Actionable by design
Forecasts should help teams decide early, not just describe weather after the fact.
Hyperlocal where it matters
From city blocks to field operations, we build for the locations where weather decisions become operational decisions.
From a research question to live operations
A decade of work compressed into the milestones that mattered.
Seeing the gap — the forecasts didn't fit the weather
Working with weather data across Southeast Asia, we kept hitting the same wall: global models were not built for tropical convective systems. Fast-forming storms, hyperlocal rainfall, and rapid intensity changes were being flattened into outputs that gave teams little they could act on.
Testing the hypothesis — a different approach, put to the test
We hypothesized that starting with tropical weather behaviour, training locally and validating against ground truth, would produce meaningfully better forecasts for this region. That approach entered a Singapore innovation competition, where it won against real-world use cases and independent scrutiny. It was the first external confirmation that a tropics-first model could outperform the status quo.
Turning the POV into a product — from a research win to an operational platform
The competition win became the foundation for a clear product point of view: forecasts designed for tropical weather, validated against what actually happens on the ground, and built for decisions that cannot wait. Early customers began using Pluvia to plan around rainfall and manage weather risk in real time.
Industrial proof points — proving it where it mattered
As Pluvia moved into production with customers across logistics and urban operations, each deployment became a real-world proof point. Forecasts were tested against actual outcomes, the platform improved continuously, and it became clear the approach worked not just in theory but in the field.
Scaling to new verticals — built for the tropics, ready for more
With a validated platform and a growing proof base, Pluvia began extending into new sectors — construction, ride hailing, insurance — where weather-driven decisions carry high operational and financial stakes. The same tropics-first foundation now serves a broader set of teams across Southeast Asia.
Meet our team
Our philosophy is simple: hire a team of diverse, passionate people and foster a culture that empowers you to do your best work.
Vladan Babovic
Founder & CEO
Applying translational science to solve one of the hardest problems: predicting tropical weather to serve public and private customers.
Shiva Kannan
Chief Operating Officer
Runs the business side of Pluvia — contracts, operations, and growth — so the science can scale.
Maarten Keizer
Chief Technology Officer
Brings decades of AI and machine learning leadership across banking, telecom, and water to build the engine behind Pluvia's forecasts.
Martin Lechner
Chairman
Chairs the board with decades of private equity and corporate governance experience across Asia's investment landscape.
Gineesh Sukumaran
Chief Data Scientist
Applies 20+ years of AI and machine learning experience to lead the modelling behind Pluvia's 100-metre storm predictions.
Rooted in Southeast Asia
We build where the weather is hardest. Our coverage spans the region's dense cities, long coastlines, and highland catchments; the places where a few extra minutes of warning changes the outcome
