Pyper Vision won government backing for its airport fog clearing technology

The government backed Pyper Vision to develop fog clearing technology for airports. The Christchurch company spreads a safe, water-absorbing product to clear the air, and Emily Blythe has led it through more than 200 drone-dispersed tests across New Zealand and Australia, clearing a critical patch of sky in as little as 10 minutes.

We backed Pyper Vision because fog imposes large, recurring costs on aviation, and no one had built a dedicated tool to forecast and manage it. Fog causes close to a third of weather-related airport delays, which makes it one of the few weather problems with a clear owner and a clear bill. The founder's resourcefulness and her habit of listening to customers are what convinced us she would find the version of this that scales.

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