The Weather Company
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The Weather Company LLC is a weather forecasting and information technology company that owns and operates the Weather Channel app and its website weather.com and Weather Underground; it also owns the Weather Channel brand. The Weather Company also produces a weather API of data and analytics tools used in advertising and aviation. The company originated from the Weather Channel, founded in 1980, and was restructured in 2012 to distinguish its media (the Weather Channel) and data (the Weather Company) operations. From 2016 to 2023, the Weather Company was a subsidiary of the Watson & Cloud Platform business unit of IBM. In February 2024, the private equity firm Francisco Partners completed the acquisition of the Weather Company, which operates as a standalone company.
History and operations
The Weather Company started as the Weather Channel in 1980, and launched two years later. In 2012, the company created a broader holding company and replaced the word "Channel" with "Company" to better reflect their growing lineup of digital products. The company acquired its competitor Weather Underground the same year.
The Weather Company was previously owned by a consortium made up of the Blackstone Group, Bain Capital, and NBCUniversal. That consortium sold the Weather Company's product and technology assets to IBM on January 29, 2016, but retained possession of the Weather Channel cable network until March 2018, when it was sold to Entertainment Studios. As part of the 2016 spin-off, the consortium entered into a long-term licensing agreement with IBM for use of its weather data and "The Weather Channel" name and branding. As a result, while the Weather Company does not operate the Weather Channel television network, it owns the Weather Channel brand and continues to operate the Weather Channel app and web site weather.com and provide the weather data used on the Weather Channel television network.
In August 2023, IBM agreed to sell the Weather Company and its assets (including the Weather Channel mobile app, weather.com, Weather Underground, and Storm Radar) to private equity firm Francisco Partners.
In February 2024, Francisco Partners completed the acquisition of the Weather Company, which operates as a standalone company. The cost was disclosed as $1.1 billion, with $750 million in cash, $100 million deferred over seven years, and $250 million in contingent consideration.