FORECA COMPANY PRESENTATION
Foreca Ltd is the first Finnish privately owned enterprise providing professional weather services.
It has been in operation since the beginning of 1997 developing forecasting software and various weather related
products using latest IT-technologies. Foreca has special expertise in mobile, Internet, sports and transport weather services.
The company has now a staff of about 30 experts in meteorology, programming and marketing.
The technical know-how and extensive market experience provide a solid basis for Foreca Ltd to become
a well-known weather service provider not only in Finland, but also in other European countries.
Foreca Ltd is growing fast and expanding its business internationally, in neighbouring countries but also in Asia.
A subsidiary, Foreca Sverige AB was established in Sweden, in March 2001.
Foreca's tailor-made weather products satisfy different needs of customers.
- Media: Foreca provides weather services for major TV channel, broadcasting companies and news agency in Finland, such as
largest commercial channel MTV3, SBS radio broadcasting and National News Agency.
- Internet and GSM: Foreca provides Internet-based weather service for several
Interenet portals in Europe. In addition, Foreca cooperates closely with two major mobile Tele-operators,
Sonera and Radiolinja, and developed the SMS and WAP weather service as one of the most popular
value added services among millions of mobile users. Foreca's world number one application of WAP
weather radar animation service was a diploma winner in Nokia's Best of WAP 2000 competition.
- Transportation and Aviation: Foreca has provided full-scale and round-the-clock weather services
to the Finnish Road Administration and several communes and cities in Finland and Sweden since 1999.
Finnish Civil Aviation Administration uses the Internet weather service provided by Foreca for both passengers and pilots.
Marine Administration in Sweden uses Foreca's high-quality forecasts for it's nationwide service in summer 2002.
- Industrial Customers: Foreca provides customized weather service for different industrial customers.
Foreca has been serving Fortum, the biggest Finnish semi-governmental energy company and other sectors requiring special services, such as agriculture.
- Services for sports: Finnish sailing team used Foreca's sport weather service in
the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. With the additional help of very accurate and specialized weather forecasts on the site,
Finnish sailors achieved outstanding performance and won the Olympic gold medal in the 49er sailing competition.
In Volvo Ocean Race 2001-2002, Foreca served several boats and again, the winner was one of them: Illbrook!
Throughout its existence, Foreca has been actively involved in many national and European R&D projects. The company's founder, Dr. Pirkko Saarikivi has been elected as 1997 Innovative Woman Entrepreneur of Europe and strategic advisor to the European Union's transportation/meteorological research. Foreca uses about 20 percent of its turnover for research and development.