CEO & Co-founder • Beewise • Series D • Climate Tech
A software engineer who once scoffed at the idea of a bee startup - and then quietly built one of the most consequential climate tech companies on the planet.
Saar Safra • CEO & Co-founder, Beewise • San Ramon, California
The Story
When Eliyah Radzyner - a commercial beekeeper turned entrepreneur - first pitched the idea to Saar Safra, the response was blunt: "Who cares about bees? One cannot build a startup around bees."
Safra had seen enough of Silicon Valley's arc to know which swings matter. He was, by any measure, a successful tech executive - CTO at Ad4Ever, then General Manager at aQuantive, then Director at Microsoft after the $6.3 billion acquisition in 2007. He left Redmond in 2008, bootstrapped a property-management software company called ActiveBuilding to $3M in annual revenue without touching venture capital, and watched RealPage acquire it in 2013. Three exits. Five companies. He had a pattern.
What he didn't have was a mission.
In 2018 Safra made a deliberate choice: he moved back to Israel after more than 15 years in the United States, to be near his parents. A few months later, he met Radzyner. He agreed to help pro bono. Within six months he understood that the beehive - unchanged in its fundamental design since the 1850s - was quietly governing the fate of 75% of the crops that feed eight billion people.
"For the last 150 years, the technology that has been used for pollination is a 150-year-old wooden box. And this is what pollinates 75% of the crop for 8 billion people."
Beewise was founded in 2018 with five co-founders: Safra, Radzyner, Boaz Petersil, Hallel Schreier, and Yossi Sorin. Their product - the BeeHome - was not a sensor bolted to an old box. It was an entirely new object: an AI-powered, solar-driven autonomous system capable of housing up to 40 bee colonies, managing climate and humidity, detecting pest intrusions, administering treatments remotely, and sending real-time alerts to growers via smartphone.
The pitch Safra keeps returning to is one of industrial stagnancy: "Crack those areas and you will see a lot of magic." He found his crackable industry in a box of wood and wire in a field in northern Israel.
"Humans can't treat bees in real-time. If there's a problem, you don't know about it until you get to the hives."- Saar Safra, CEO & Co-founder, Beewise
The Problem
When Beewise was founded in 2018, the annual U.S. colony collapse rate was already in the upper 30% range - high enough to alarm entomologists, alarming enough to destabilize crop yield projections. By 2024 that number had reached 62%. Commercial beekeepers were losing more than half their colonies every year.
The Varroa mite - a parasitic arachnid that weakens bees and spreads viral disease - is the primary culprit. Traditional treatment requires physical access to the hive: protective gear, smoke, manual inspection, and direct chemical application. In large commercial operations spread across hundreds of acres, this is logistically impossible to do with the frequency required.
Safra's argument is structural: the problem isn't lazy beekeeping. The problem is a 170-year-old system that generates no data, responds to no signals, and treats automation as a luxury rather than a necessity.
The BeeHome 4 - Beewise's current generation product - addresses Varroa with Heat Chamber Technology: targeted thermal treatment that eliminates 99% of Varroa mites without exposing bees to any chemical residue.
U.S. Bee Colony Loss Rates
Annual U.S. honey bee colony collapse rates. Source: Beewise / USDA
Climate Control
Manages internal temperature and humidity for up to 40 colonies simultaneously
Pest Management
Heat Chamber Tech eliminates 99% of Varroa mites - no chemicals required
Remote Intervention
Close hive entrances against pesticide exposure from a smartphone, instantly
Computer Vision
AI-powered hive inspection via cameras and sensors - without opening the hive
Automated Feeding
Precise nutrition delivery and swarm prevention - autonomous, around the clock
Solar Powered
Off-grid operation anywhere agriculture needs pollination services
Career Arc
Early Career
Started as a software developer - building the technical instincts that would carry through six companies
2001
Became CTO of Ad4Ever, an online advertising technology company
2001-2007
Ad4Ever acquired by aQuantive; Safra rises to GM & VP of Rich Media
2007
Microsoft acquires aQuantive for $6.3B; Safra becomes Director of Rich Media Solutions at Microsoft
2008
Leaves Microsoft and founds ActiveBuilding - property management SaaS built without external funding
2013
ActiveBuilding acquired by RealPage - exit number three
2018
Returns to Israel; co-founds Beewise with four partners after initially dismissing the idea
2022
Beewise closes Series C financing round; scales BeeHome deployments globally
2025
Closes $50M Series D; named to Forbes Sustainability Leaders list; Beewise approaches profitability
Funding History
Beewise cumulative funding across rounds. Series D investors: Fortissimo Capital, Insight Partners, APG Asset Management, lool Ventures.
Education
University of Washington • MBA
The business foundation behind six companies and three successful exits.
"My life's mission is to protect bees and secure global food supplies against modern threats."- Saar Safra, Forbes Sustainability Leaders 2025
Achievements
The Mindset
Safra's business philosophy is legible in his track record. At ActiveBuilding, he deliberately avoided venture capital - growing to $3M annual revenue with a tiny team before the RealPage acquisition. He describes this as proof of concept: the best companies are built on real demand, not pitched valuations.
At Beewise, the approach is different because the urgency is different. Colony collapse doesn't wait for organic growth curves. With 62% of U.S. colonies lost in a single year, the math is existential: either the industry gets automated tools fast, or it continues to erode the agricultural foundation that supports global food production.
He gravitates toward industries that haven't been touched by software. The 150-year-old wooden beehive wasn't a romantic anachronism - it was a vulnerability. Sensors bolted onto old boxes, he argues, miss the point: data without action is noise. The BeeHome acts.
His framework for founder advice is equally direct: find the stagnant industries. Crack them. Watch what happens.
"Crack those areas and you will see a lot of magic!"
Signals & Details
Beewise quantifies its ecological impact with unusual precision: "We save at least two bees for every dollar earned." Not a vague ESG metric - a specific bee-per-dollar commitment.
The Langstroth beehive design Beewise is replacing was patented in 1851 - making it older than the telephone, the light bulb, and the combustion engine, all of which have been updated multiple times since.
Beewise is Safra's sixth company. His team at Beewise includes beekeepers, roboticists, AI engineers, botanists, and apiology researchers - a combination of disciplines that did not exist as a career category before 2018.
The BeeHome operates entirely on solar power - making it deployable anywhere agriculture needs pollination, off the grid and without infrastructure.
When Eliyah Radzyner first pitched him, Safra's exact response was: "Who cares about bees? One cannot build a startup around bees!" He then spent six months helping pro bono before changing his mind entirely.
Growers working with Beewise can close hive entrances remotely from a smartphone - protecting colonies from pesticide drift in real time. This was physically impossible with any previous beekeeping technology.