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Hohonu develops and deploys an advanced flood detection system, offering national-scale water monitoring through a combination of proprietary sensors and a comprehensive software platform. Its core product delivers real-time, ground-truth water data, leveraging low-cost ultrasonic and radar technologies for both daily monitoring and extreme event detection. The system provides easy installation, public-facing live maps, and integrates seamlessly into existing workflows for informed decision-making.
The company was co-founded in 2018 by Brian Glazer, Kevin Mukai, and Stanley Lio. Their collective insight centered on addressing the critical need for timely and accurate water level intelligence to enhance community resilience against the escalating impacts of climate-induced flooding. They recognized a gap in accessible, hyper-local data necessary for effective emergency response and long-term planning.
Hohonu serves a diverse clientele including emergency management, public safety organizations, environmental protection agencies, public works departments, and port operators. The company’s vision is to empower communities with actionable flood data, facilitating smarter planning, faster response, and greater resilience across all types of flooding events, from tidal surges and urban flash floods to compound events and inland river flooding.
Hohonu has raised $2.0M across 1 funding round.
Hohonu has raised $2.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Hohonu has raised $2.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $2.0M Seed in April 2023.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 1, 2023 | $2M Seed | — | Propeller VC | Announced |
Hohonu has raised $2.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Hohonu's investors include Propeller VC.
Hohonu is a technology startup that builds a network of low-cost ultrasonic and radar sensors for real-time water level monitoring, delivering data via APIs, mobile apps, and dashboards to help coastal and inland communities manage flood risks.[1][2][3] It serves emergency managers, public works, environmental planners, ports, and government agencies by solving the problem of inaccurate or unavailable hyperlocal water data, which traditional tide predictions often fail to provide amid storms, surges, and sea level rise.[1][2][3] With over 3 million hours of monitoring across 200 locations in 18 U.S. states and $1M+ in funding, Hohonu demonstrates strong growth through contracts with NOAA, municipalities, and firms like HDR Engineering.[1][3][5]
The company's TideCast app and proprietary machine learning predictions enable actions like road closures and resource allocation, while its subscription model ($3,100/year/site) makes deployment accessible without specialized teams.[1][3][5]
Hohonu originated in 2014 from a University of Hawai'i oceanography lab when founder Max Glazer, frustrated by the lack of affordable environmental monitoring tools while restoring an 800-year-old Hawaiian fishpond, partnered with engineer Stanley Lio to develop low-cost water level sensors.[2][5] Incorporated in 2019 as a UH startup, it received early funding from the National Science Foundation and Schmidt Marine Tech Partners to commercialize the technology, emphasizing software infrastructure alongside hardware to democratize ocean-observing data.[2][5]
Pivotal early traction came from deployments on bridges, piers, and docks, leading to contracts with NOAA divisions, cities, counties, and non-profits; by 2020, it expanded to coastlines, rivers, and aquaculture across states like Hawaii, Florida, and South Carolina.[2][3][5]
Hohonu rides the wave of climate resilience tech, addressing rising flood risks from sea level rise, intensified storms, and inland flooding in vulnerable U.S. coastal and riverine areas.[2][4][5] Its timing aligns with surging demand for hyperlocal data as federal initiatives like NOAA contracts and municipal resilience planning prioritize real-time monitoring over historical models.[3][5]
Market forces favoring Hohonu include affordable IoT hardware, ML forecasting advances, and subscription models that scale nationally without heavy capex; it influences the ecosystem by filling data gaps for 54+ municipalities, enabling better infrastructure design and public trust via live maps.[2][3][5]
Hohonu is poised to expand nationwide with its pre-seed funding close, targeting untapped rivers, watersheds, and aquaculture while enhancing ML predictions for compound events.[1][2][5] Trends like AI-driven climate tech and federal resilience funding will accelerate growth, potentially evolving its influence from sensor provider to full platform for integrated flood strategy.
This positions Hohonu as a key enabler for proactive communities, turning real-time data into lives and assets saved—just as its origins promised smarter flood monitoring from Hawaii to the mainland.[2][3]
