MesoMat Announces Seed Round Led by Ridgeline to Digitize the Tire and Drive Down Emissions

HAMILTON, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jun 11, 2025--

MesoMat, a startup transforming tires into data-rich, connected devices, today announced it has raised a Seed Round led by Ridgeline with participation from RISC Capital, RPV Global, GTAN including the Archangel Network’s Adrenaline and Starforge Funds, Extra Innings Ventures and others. The funding will support MesoMat as the company accelerates commercialization, expands hardware production, and continues the development of its proprietary tire management platform, which helps vehicle fleets optimize performance, reduce downtime and curb carbon emissions.

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“We’re excited to partner with a group of investors who share our vision for revolutionizing how fleets approach tire management,” said Paul Fowler, Co-Founder and CEO of MesoMat. “By digitizing the tire—the only part of a vehicle that touches the road—we give the vehicle a sense of touch. Through the tire, MesoMat extracts data that helps fleets manage payload, optimize routing, improve efficiency and reduce two of their largest expenses: fuel and tires.”

​​MesoMat’s technology integrates advanced sensors within tires, capturing real-time data on tread depth, tire pressure, and rubber-road interactions. Leveraging cloud-based analytics, MesoMat transforms these data streams into actionable insights that allow drivers, fleets, and service providers to track tread depth, achieve optimal tire pressure, reduce wear, and prevent costly failures. This enhanced visibility translates into improved safety, better fuel economy, and a measurable reduction in carbon emissions—critical in an industry facing steep challenges related to electrification and hydrogen infrastructure.

Among MesoMat’s customer base are several of the largest vehicle fleets in North America, leading tire manufacturers, major tire dealerships and a top global truck manufacturer.

Addressing a Large-Scale Problem

Currently, there are estimated to be over 300 million commercial tires on the road worldwide, yet most remain undigitized, limiting their potential to contribute to smarter, more efficient fleet operations. Further, with tire performance directly impacting up to 10% of a vehicle's carbon emissions, MesoMat’s solution targets one of the most significant levers for improving fuel efficiency. As full electrification and hydrogen-based solutions may still be years away, MesoMat offers a near-term strategy for the trucking and heavy-vehicle industry to trim costs and reduce emissions.

Backed by Prominent Investors

Along with Ridgeline, prominent investors such as RISC Capital, GTAN, and RPV have joined the round, underscoring confidence in MesoMat’s potential to transform tire management across industries including long-haul trucking, mining, tire manufacturing, and more.

“MesoMat is tackling one of the most pressing challenges in commercial trucking by bridging the gap between outdated manual processes and the data-driven insights fleets need to succeed,” said Ryan Clinton, Managing Partner at Ridgeline. “We believe Paul and his team have the expertise to redefine how fleets manage tire-related costs in a sector that’s overdue for modernization.”

A World-Class Team

Co-founded by Paul Fowler, whose background includes a Master’s degree in physics, research at world-leading institutes, and prior experience as the first employee at a Y Combinator–backed data-services startup, MesoMat boasts a robust team of engineers and data scientists. The company’s Co-Founder and CTO, Kari Dalnoki-Veress, is a leading expert on the physics of rubber, and recent hires bring experience in trucking and logistics—all focused on innovating the way fleets operate.

“Our mission is to digitize the tire to bring intelligence to a critical component of the global supply chain that we depend on to move goods worldwide,” added Fowler. “Whether it’s long-haul trucking, last-mile delivery, or heavy-duty mining, we want to help drive down costs, reduce downtime and cut emissions. We're proud of the product and exceptional team we’ve built to make this vision a reality.”

About MesoMat

MesoMat is on a mission to revolutionize tire management. MesoMat combines proprietary hardware with cloud based software to transform the tire into a connected device with 24/7 tracking of pressure, temperature, tread depth, vehicle load and more. MesoMat’s platform helps fleets cut costs, reduce downtime, improve safety, and meet growing environmental targets. Learn more at mesomat.com.

Paul Fowler (left) and Kari Dalnoki-Veress (right), co-founders of MesoMat.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. flu infections showed signs of a slight decline last week, but health officials say it is not clear that this severe flu season has peaked.

New government data posted Friday — for flu activity through last week — showed declines in medical office visits due to flu-like illness and in the number of states reporting high flu activity.

However, some measures show this season is already surpassing the flu epidemic of last winter, one of the harshest in recent history. And experts believe there is more suffering ahead.

“This is going to be a long, hard flu season,” New York State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said, in a statement Friday.

One type of flu virus, called A H3N2, historically has caused the most hospitalizations and deaths in older people. So far this season, that is the type most frequently reported. Even more concerning, more than 91% of the H3N2 infections analyzed were a new version — known as the subclade K variant — that differs from the strain in this year’s flu shots.

The last flu season saw the highest overall flu hospitalization rate since the H1N1 flu pandemic 15 years ago. And child flu deaths reached 289, the worst recorded for any U.S. flu season this century — including that H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic of 2009-2010.

So far this season, there have been at least 15 million flu illnesses and 180,000 hospitalizations, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. It also estimates there have been 7,400 deaths, including the deaths of at least 17 children.

Last week, 44 states reported high flu activity, down slightly from the week before. However, flu deaths and hospitalizations rose.

Determining exactly how flu season is going can be particularly tricky around the holidays. Schools are closed, and many people are traveling. Some people may be less likely to see a doctor, deciding to just suffer at home. Others may be more likely to go.

Also, some seasons see a surge in cases, then a decline, and then a second surge.

For years, federal health officials joined doctors' groups in recommending that everyone 6 months and older get an annual influenza vaccine. The shots may not prevent all symptoms but can prevent many infections from becoming severe, experts say.

But federal health officials on Monday announced they will no longer recommend flu vaccinations for U.S. children, saying it is a decision parents and patients should make in consultation with their doctors.

“I can’t begin to express how concerned we are about the future health of the children in this country, who already have been unnecessarily dying from the flu — a vaccine preventable disease,” said Michele Slafkosky, executive director of an advocacy organization called Families Fighting Flu.

“Now, with added confusion for parents and health care providers about childhood vaccines, I fear that flu seasons to come could be even more deadly for our youngest and most vulnerable," she said in a statement.

Flu is just one of a group of viruses that tend to strike more often in the winter. Hospitalizations from COVID-19 and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, also have been rising in recent weeks — though were not diagnosed nearly as often as flu infections, according to other federal data.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - Pharmacy manager Aylen Amestoy administers a patient with a seasonal flu vaccine at a CVS Pharmacy in Miami, Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell, File)