track was launched in 2021 with the aim of using computer vision to assist reduce the impact of wind turbines on local bird populations. Now the startup has proven its technology works and is seeing demand from wind farms and beyond.
Oslo, Norway-based Spoor has developed software that uses computer vision to trace and discover bird populations and migration patterns. The software can detect birds inside a radius of two.5 kilometers (roughly 1.5 miles) and works with any commercially available high-resolution camera.
Wind farm operators can use this information to higher plan the situation of wind farms and higher manage migration patterns. For example, a wind farm could decelerate and even switch off its turbines during times of high local migration.
Aske Helseth (pictured above left), Spoor's co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch last yr that he became taken with this area after learning that wind farms lacked effective tracking methods, despite the fact that many countries have strict rules about where wind farms could be built and the way they will operate as a result of local bird populations.
“Regulators’ expectations are rising, however the industry doesn’t have an ideal tool,” Helseth said on the time. “Loads of people exit into the sphere with binoculars and trained dogs to learn the way many birds are colliding with the turbines.”
Helseth told TechCrunch last week that the corporate has since demonstrated the necessity for the technology and worked to enhance it.
At the time of seed breeding in 2024, Spoor was in a position to track birds at a distance of 1 kilometer, which has since doubled. As the corporate has collected more data to feed into its AI model, it has improved the accuracy of its bird detection to around 96%.
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“When you discover the bird species for some customers, you add one other layer,” Helseth said. “Is it a bird or not a bird? We have an in-house ornithologist who helps train the model to coach the brand new species of birds or a brand new variety of species. Deployment in other countries means (means) having rare species within the database.”
Spoor now works on three continents and with greater than 20 of the world's largest energy firms. Other sectors akin to airports and aquaculture firms are also showing increasing interest. Spoor has a partnership with Rio Tinto, a London-based mining giant, to trace bats.
The company has also shown interest in using its technology to trace other objects of comparable size – but Helseth said they will not be serious about moving into those areas yet.
“For us, drones are after all plastic birds,” joked Helseth. “They move in other ways and have a unique shape and size. We're currently discarding that data, but we're getting interest in it.”
Spoor recently raised an €8 million ($9.3 million) Series A round led by SET Ventures and including strategic investors including Ørstead Ventures and Superorganism.
Helseth predicts that interest in the sort of technology will only increase as regulators proceed to crack down on wind farms. For example, French regulators have closed a wind farm in April over its impact on the local bird population and imposed lots of of hundreds of thousands in fines.
“Our mission is to enable the coexistence of industry and nature,” said Helseth. “We have began this journey, but we’re still a small startup with loads to prove. In the approaching years, we wish to essentially consolidate our position within the wind industry and develop into a world leader in addressing these challenges. At the identical time, we wish to offer some evidence that this technology has value beyond this predominant category.”
