Urban Canopy
Urban Canopy is a Mountain View-based climate analytics company that produces parcel-level thermal maps of urban heat islands using NASA ECOSTRESS satellite data, aircraft imagery, and machine learning, serving cities, building owners, and urban foresters.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2019
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Urban Canopy does
Urban Canopy is a Mountain View, California-based climate data analytics company that produces high-resolution thermal maps of urban heat islands for cities, building owners, and urban foresters. Founded in 2019 as a project of Hello World Labs, the company combines NASA ECOSTRESS satellite thermal imagery from the International Space Station, aircraft-based thermal photography, and drone data, processing these through QGIS, Mapbox, and a proprietary random forest machine learning model that sharpens resolution from 70m to 30m per pixel. The core product is a web-based platform at urbancanopy.io that displays parcel-level heat scores (rated out of 10), enables comparison of properties against district averages, and provides behavioral science-driven gamification tools (leaderboards, feedback loops, color grades) to drive cooling actions.
The company monetizes through a combination of subscription-based thermal maps and reports sold to enterprise and government clients under custom (non-publicly disclosed) annual pricing, paid consulting engagements, and an affiliate referral network connecting community members to local cooling product providers such as trees, green roofs, cool roofs, and reflective paints. Distribution is hybrid: a free self-serve web app drives top-of-funnel awareness while direct consultation "Book a Call" CTAs convert cities and large building owners into paid engagements. Marketing is heavily founder-led through Katie Patrick's personal brand (approximately 20,000 social media followers, 4,000-person email list), supplemented by Medium articles, YouTube videos, a podcast, and the Earth Hacks hackathon that crowdsources thermal image processing globally.
The company operates with 1-10 employees, has no disclosed institutional funding, and has named only two customer relationships in public materials: a 2020 case study with Stanford University and the local forestry nonprofit Canopy. Geographic focus is concentrated in California (Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, San Francisco Bay Area), with a stated ambition to map urban heat islands globally via ECOSTRESS satellite coverage. Related products under the Hello World Labs umbrella include Energy Lollipop (a Chrome browser extension for energy/AC monitoring) and Block Club.
Urban Canopy firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Urban Canopy
- Legal name
- Urban Canopy
- Website
- https://urbancanopy.io
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2019
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Urban Canopy is a Mountain View-based climate analytics company that produces parcel-level thermal maps of urban heat islands using NASA ECOSTRESS satellite data, aircraft imagery, and machine learning, serving cities, building owners, and urban foresters.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Urban Canopy industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Urban Heat Mapping & Climate Data Analytics
- NAICS
- Support Activities for Forestry (1153)
- SIC
- Forestry (800)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Urban & Community Reforestation / Street Tree Planting (AFAMACAL)
Keywords
Where Urban Canopy is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Urban Canopy business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Others
Revenue model
- Thermal Maps & Reports: Urban Canopy provides high-resolution thermal maps and reports to cities, building owners, and urban foresters, likely sold as a subscription or per-engagement service. The company has a Reports and Pricing page indicating paid offerings.
- Consulting & Advisory Services: Free and paid consultations with urban heat experts offered to cities, building owners, and urban foresters to help them understand thermal data and implement cooling solutions.
- Community Network & Engagement: Community network joining thousands of individuals who receive tips, products, and opportunities about urban greening projects near them, with referrals to local partners for products such as trees, green roofs, shading, and reflective paints.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Enterprise/City Plans (custom) |
| Freemium | Monthly | Community/Free Access |
Go-to-market motion2 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels7 records
Urban Canopy product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Urban Canopy is a web-based platform that delivers high-resolution thermal maps of urban heat islands using NASA ECOSTRESS satellite data, aircraft thermal photography, and drone imagery. It assigns each land parcel a heat score (out of 10) and provides behavioral science-driven community engagement tools to help cities, building owners, and urban foresters target cooling interventions. The platform is sold as custom-priced reports and engagement subscriptions to enterprise and government buyers, with free public maps for community engagement.
Product overview
Urban Canopy is a single unified platform providing high-resolution thermal mapping services for urban heat island analysis. The core offering consists of interactive heat island maps, property-level heat score reports, and behavioral science-driven community engagement tools. Related products include Energy Lollipop (Chrome extension) and Block Club. The platform utilizes NASA ECOSTRESS satellite data and aircraft-based thermal imagery, processing this through Mapbox and QGIS to deliver actionable insights for cities, building owners, and urban foresters.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- Energy Lollipop: A Chrome browser extension for energy monitoring
- Hackathon by Earth Hacks + Urban Canopy
Products and services
- Heat Island Maps Interactive web-based thermal maps showing surface temperature variations across urban areas, displaying hot spots contributing to urban heat through color-coded visualizations. Available for cities including Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, and additional locations globally via NASA ECOSTRESS data.
- Heat Score Reports Property-specific heat scoring system that assigns each land parcel a heat score out of 10 based on average thermal readings, enabling comparison against neighbors and district averages. Sold on custom pricing for cities, building owners, and urban foresters.
- Community Engagement Tools Behavioral science-based engagement platform using gamification including leaderboards, feedback loops, star ratings, social comparisons, color grades, rewards, and achievement levels to drive urban greening and cooling action based on property heat scores.
- Energy Lollipop Chrome browser extension providing energy and emissions tracking related to air conditioning use during summer peak demand periods, complementing Urban Canopy's mission to reduce peak electricity demand.
Quantifiable outcome
- Cities can be up to 12°F hotter than surrounding natural areas during heat waves; some rooftop surfaces can exceed 200°F.
- +7 more outcomes
Companies that use Urban Canopy
Customer profileNamed customers2 records
Segments5 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Urban Canopy technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability5 records
Feature6 records
Urban Canopy partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- Earth HackscoreEarth Hacks is a co-host of the Urban Heat Island Hackathon alongside Urban Canopy. The partnership leverages Earth Hacks' network of environmental innovators and hackathon participants to crowdsource the processing of NASA ECOSTRESS thermal imagery into a global urban heat island map. This is a flagship partnership enabling Urban Canopy to scale its data coverage globally without direct hiring.
- NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)coreNASA JPL's ECOSTRESS sensor on the International Space Station (launched 2017) provides the core satellite thermal data that Urban Canopy processes and visualizes. Urban Canopy uses ECOSTRESS data (land surface temperature) to create urban heat island maps. NASA JPL provides the raw thermal imagery through their publicly available data portal (ecostress.jpl.nasa.gov), and Urban Canopy features images in NASA's official ECOSTRESS image gallery.
- Stanford UniversitycoreStanford University collaborated with Urban Canopy on a case study involving local urban forestry. The partnership demonstrates Urban Canopy's application in academic research contexts for urban heat and forestry analysis.
- Canopy (Local Forestry Group)minorCanopy is a local urban forestry organization that partnered with Urban Canopy and Stanford University on a case study demonstrating how thermal maps can inform tree planting and urban greening initiatives.
- Hello World LabscoreUrban Canopy is created and operated by Hello World Labs, a company based in Mountain View, California. Hello World Labs is the parent entity that developed and maintains the Urban Canopy platform and related products including Energy Lollipop.
- Energy LollipopminorEnergy Lollipop is a related product under the Hello World Labs umbrella, accessible through Urban Canopy's website. It provides browser-based energy consumption monitoring tools that complement Urban Canopy's mission to reduce peak electricity demand from air conditioning.
- MapboxcoreUrban Canopy uses Mapbox as the primary mapping platform for its web-based thermal maps. Urban Canopy exports processed thermal images as Mapbox raster tilesets (MBTiles format) for display on the public web platform. This is a core technology integration powering the consumer-facing product.
Scale indicators3 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights5 records
Urban Canopy competitors and assessment
Company assessmentBroad incumbents
- Climate Central: Nonprofit that visualizes and communicates climate risks to the public and policymakers. Comparable 'data → public/municipal engagement' mission via maps and storytelling, but broader scope beyond urban heat.
- ESRI: Incumbent GIS platform used by virtually all municipalities; Urban Canopy is built on top of an ESRI competitor (Mapbox). ESRI is the dominant incumbent whose ArcGIS platform city buyers already use, making it the default displacement target.
- The Trust for Public Land: Nonprofit that creates and protects urban parks and green space; runs ParkScore and similar city-cooling initiatives. Comparable mission (cool cities via green infrastructure) and comparable municipal engagement.
- C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group: Network of global mayors focused on climate action including heat resilience. Comparable customer set (large city governments) and overlapping heat-mitigation agenda; not a software competitor but a buyer-and-standards shaper.
Emerging players
- WattCarbon: Energy and carbon analytics platform focused on building-level decarbonization. Comparable building-owner buyer and carbon-emissions framing that overlaps with Urban Canopy's 'reduce AC-driven peak emissions' value proposition.
- Planet Labs: Daily-revisit commercial satellite imagery provider that sells directly to cities and climate-monitoring users. Could enter the urban-heat-imagery niche using its own thermal/SWIR sensors and displace Urban Canopy's ECOSTRESS-dependent workflow.
- Maxar Technologies: High-resolution Earth observation company with thermal-capable imagery serving government and municipal markets. Source of alternative thermal data that could power competitors to Urban Canopy.
Direct peers
- PlanIT Geo (TreePlotter): Software platform for urban foresters and municipalities to inventory trees, monitor canopy, and prioritize planting. Most directly comparable to Urban Canopy's urban-forestry use case: same buyer (cities/urban foresters), same parcel/tree data layer.
- Lucid: Building-level energy analytics platform sold to utilities and commercial buildings. Comparable 'parcel-level building data → owner actions' model and overlapping building-owner buyer persona Urban Canopy serves.
- Azavea (OpenTreeMap): Civic geospatial software firm whose OpenTreeMap provides open-source urban tree-canopy management for cities and nonprofits. Comparable customer base, comparable mission (urban canopy data for cities), complementary geospatial stack.
Market position
Strengths4 records
Weaknesses4 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights6 records
Customer concentration
Urban Canopy social profiles
Digital presenceUrban Canopy financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Urban Canopy leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Urban Canopy funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Urban Canopy M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Urban Canopy
What does Urban Canopy do?
Urban Canopy is a web-based platform that delivers high-resolution thermal maps of urban heat islands using NASA ECOSTRESS satellite data, aircraft thermal photography, and drone imagery. It assigns each land parcel a heat score (out of 10) and provides behavioral science-driven community engagement tools to help cities, building owners, and urban foresters target cooling interventions. The platform is sold as custom-priced reports and engagement subscriptions to enterprise and government buyers, with free public maps for community engagement.
Is Urban Canopy a public or private company?
Urban Canopy is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Urban Canopy founded?
Urban Canopy was founded in 2019. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Urban Canopy based?
Urban Canopy is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does Urban Canopy make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Thermal Maps & Reports are the primary driver. The others are consulting & Advisory Services and community Network & Engagement.
Who are Urban Canopy's main competitors?
Broad incumbents on record are Climate Central, ESRI, The Trust for Public Land and C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. Emerging players are WattCarbon, Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies. Direct peers are PlanIT Geo (TreePlotter), Lucid and Azavea (OpenTreeMap).
Does Urban Canopy have an API?
No public API is recorded for Urban Canopy.
What industry is Urban Canopy in?
Urban Canopy's product category is Urban Heat Mapping & Climate Data Analytics. Its primary akta.pro industry code is AFAMACAL, Urban & Community Reforestation / Street Tree Planting. Its NAICS code is 1153 and its SIC code is 800.