Mark Launched in 2021 with the goal of using computer vision to help 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 created software that uses computer vision to track and identify bird populations and migration patterns. The software can detect birds within a 2.5 kilometer radius (about 1.5 miles) and works with any off-the-shelf high-resolution camera.
Wind farm operators can use this information to better plan where wind farms should be located and to help them better navigate migration patterns. For example, during heavy periods of local migration a wind farm may slow down its turbines, or even stop them altogether.
Ask Helseth (pictured above left), Spur’s co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch last year that he became interested in the field after he learned that wind farms lacked effective tracking methods, despite many countries having strict rules about where wind farms can be built and how they can operate due to local bird populations.
“Expectations from regulators are rising but the industry doesn’t have any great tools,” Helseth said at the time. “Many people go out into the field with binoculars and trained dogs to find out how many birds are being hit by the turbines.”
Since then, the company has proven the need for this technology and has worked to improve it, Helseth told TechCrunch last week.
At the time of its seed production in 2024, Spur was able to track birds within a radius of 1 kilometre, which has since doubled. As the company has collected more data to feed into its AI model, it has been able to improve its bird identification accuracy to about 96%.
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“For some customers, identifying the species of bird, you add another layer,” Helseth said. “Is it a bird or not? We have an in-house ornithologist to help train models to identify new types of birds or new types of species. Keeping rare species in the database means deployment to other countries.”
Spur now works on three continents and with more than 20 of the world’s largest energy companies. There is also interest from other industries such as airports and aquaculture farms. Spoor has partnered with London-based mining company Rio Tinto to track the bats.
The company has also received interest in using its technology to track other objects of similar size — but Helseth said they’re not thinking about moving into those areas yet.
“Drones are definitely a plastic bird in our minds,” Helseth joked. “They move differently and have different shapes and sizes. We’re removing that data at the moment but we’re getting interest in it.”
Spoor recently raised an €8 million ($9.3 million) Series A round led by SET Ventures with participation from Ørsted Ventures and Superorganism in addition to strategic investors.
Helseth predicts that interest in this type of technology will only increase as regulators continue to crack down on wind farms. For example, French regulators shut down a wind farm In April, a fine worth crores was imposed due to its impact on the local bird population.
“Our mission is to enable industry and nature to co-exist,” Helseth said. “We have started that journey, but we are still a small startup with a lot to prove. In the coming years, we really want to strengthen our position in the wind industry and become a global leader in tackling these challenges. At the same time, we want to create some proof points that the value of this technology extends beyond that core category.”
