Carsten Brinkschulte. Image: Dryad Networks
Founded in 2018, this German climate-tech start-up wants to make a ‘profound impact’ on reducing wildfire damage.
As the climate crisis continues to worse, the extreme weather and environmental impacts rise in severity and frequency. In April of this year, the European State of the Climate report highlighted the intensity of the climate crisis in the EU and the many climate records that were broken in 2023.
Alongside devastating heatwaves and river flows, one notable event spotlighted by the report was a massive wildfire that occurred in Greece. This wildfire, which was twice the size of Athens, was the largest ever wildfire recorded in the EU.
According to the World Health Organization, wildfires are increasing around the world in frequency, severity and duration. As well as contaminating the air with toxic pollutants, wildfires also release large quantities of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These disasters can also heavily impact infrastructure, disrupting transportation, communications, water supply and power services.
The need for protection against these devastating events is becoming more and more urgent. One company that is determined to tackle this issue, particularly in the wildland-urban interface, is our latest Start-up of the Week – Dryad Networks.
Dryad Networks is a Germany-based start-up founded by Carsten Brinkschulte, Marco Bönig and Cherian Mathew that wants to revolutionise wildfire protection and prevention. The start-up’s solution combines advanced sensor technology with AI-driven analytics to detect fires at their earliest stages, even before smoke columns are visible from afar.
“This rapid detection is crucial for saving lives, protecting property and minimising environmental damage,” says Brinkschulte, who is also CEO. “Our system complements traditional methods like satellites and cameras, adding a crucial layer of ‘ground-level’ detection to enable even faster responses in hard-to-reach areas.
“Our ultimate goal is to create a profound impact on reducing wildfire damage and preserving communities and natural habitats. This involves collaborating closely with governments, research institutions and industry stakeholders to promote the adoption of early detection systems worldwide.”
The spark of an idea
With a background in software engineering and telecoms, Brinkschulte spent 25 years in the telecoms industry where he started and ran three companies in the area of messaging and network infrastructure.
In 2018, after being involved in the sale of Core Network Dynamics (of which he was CEO at the time) to Twilio, Brinkschulte “fell into a hole”, not knowing what to do next. He soon started to notice the increasing occurrence of wildfires, while his daughter got involved with Fridays for Future – an international movement where school students skip Friday classes to participate in climate demonstrations.
“This was what flipped the switch and made me think about how I could apply telecoms and IoT technology to tackle wildfires, one of the most visible signs of climate change,” he tells SiliconRepublic.com.
“Traditional wildfire detection methods, such as satellite imagery and optical sensors, often detect fires only after they have grown large, missing the crucial early stages when intervention could prevent widespread damage. This gap highlighted the need for a more effective solution.”
According to Brinkschulte, Dryad’s wildfire detection system – known as Silvanet – utilises sensor tech, a wireless network and a cloud-based monitoring platform to detect forest fires in their earliest stages, specifically during the smoldering phase.
“The core components include sensor nodes equipped with gas sensors and air quality sensors. The gas sensors detect hydrogen, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds, key indicators of smoldering fires.”
The system employs the LoRa/LoRaWAN protocol for its wireless network, which Brinkschulte says was chosen for its long-range, low-energy communication capabilities, which he says are crucial for covering large forested areas with minimal energy consumption.
Lastly, the system’s cloud platform manages user and device data, performs analytics and issues alerts, providing an API for integration with third-party systems and a comprehensive user interface for monitoring.
‘App store of the forest’
So far, Brinkschulte indicates that things are going well for the company. He tells us about some successful case studies involving Dryad, including one in Lebanon where Silvanet detected an unauthorised fire in 30 minutes.
In October, the company was awarded a total of €6.3m in funding, with €3.8m coming from the European Regional Development Fund and €2.5m from climate investor, First Imagine. Using the funding, the start-up intends to advance the development of its wildfire suppression project, titled ‘Florian’, an autonomous drone-based system designed to combat wildfires at their inception using fire suppression technology, such as acoustic waves.
“Looking ahead, we’re currently preparing for an upcoming Series B round to support our next phase of growth,” says Brinkschulte. “This funding will enable us to expand our reach, develop new features, and further advance our wildfire prevention and forest management solutions.”
As well as funding success, the company was also declared the Green Innovator of the Year 2024 at the Innovator des Jahres Awards in Berlin.
Going forward, Dryad has ambitions to tackle other areas of forest protection.
“We plan to expand Silvanet into other areas beyond wildfire detection, creating an ecosystem that supports numerous forest applications – from chainsaw noise detection to prevent illegal logging, to forest health and growth monitoring,” explains Brinkschulte.
“Ultimately, we envision Silvanet becoming an ‘app store of the forest’, where our platform supports a variety of applications tailored to different needs and challenges in forest management.
“By diversifying our customer base, expanding into new regions and forming key partnerships, we aim to show that proactive forest management is an invaluable investment for private landowners, municipalities and environmental agencies globally.”
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