Climate X, a London-based purpose-driven startup, has completed its pre-seed raise of $1.5M – ushering in a new era of climate intelligence that will help businesses, governments and individuals around the world build a stronger, climate-resilient future.
The situation for insurers is complex, since some events, like the recent flooding across Belgium, Germany and other countries is being blamed on climate change by activists and mainstream media. Whereas in reality, a quick check of flood levels in the past reveals that some German towns have experienced these devastating events many times before. Then there is the matter of green policies enacted by politicians regarding river dredging, run-off drains and soakaways, poor dam maintenance and constantly approving more housing developments on flood plains.
Sometimes an understanding of human nature, rather than nature itself, provides a good risk forecast.
Pale Blue Dot, one of Europe’s premier climate-focused Venture Capital firms, led the oversubscribed round. Other investors include UK-based Blue Wire Capital, US-based VC’s A100x and Possibilian, Hong Kong’s Jennifer Cheng’s NewChic Family Office and strategic angel investors from around the world. Climate X were advised in their round by Eversheds Sutherland, led by Tom Jackson.
“Lukky and Kamil are two amazing founders with the domain expertise that we believe is necessary to win in this market. We are very excited to join them on this journey and see Climate X introduced to the world,” said Heidi Lindvall, General Partner at Pale Blue Dot.
ADDING VALUE TO THE ESG CHAIN
Insurance brands need to look at climate change as an opportunity to sell more products to companies and public sector bodies, who are all keen to tick the right boxes. Then there is the matter of ESG being baked into corporate reporting – as an insurer ot broker, you need to make sure every supplier and partner company is also singing from the same green hymm sheet. In effect, there’s a sustainablity audit every year, not just an audit of company balance sheets that has to be signed off.
Kamil Kluza, co-founder and Chief Product Officer, said “Climate X is bridging a gap between regulatory requirements and latest technology. We’ve built a ‘glass box’ solution combining remote sensing, a digital twin of the Earth and machine learning. By carefully balancing these components, we help satisfy both regulators, who require transparency, and users, who need detailed and understandable climate intelligence at asset-level scales.”
Lukky Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of Climate X, reflected on how the company was born in response to the need to connect the world of physical risks that can destroy assets, infrastructures and livelihoods with financial markets and broader risk management.
“It simply doesn’t make sense that climate risks aren’t factored into pricing, valuations or investment strategies. The limited data available in the market was fragmented or assembled in ways that didn’t stand up to our scrutiny, so we decided to partner with leading climate scientists and academia to create it ourselves. Climate X creates the vital link between macro-level climate change events and location-specific intelligence, enabling pro-active actions to build a more climate-resilient world,” he said.
Climate X has already garnered unprecedented attention from globally significant institutions, across multiple industries, joining their Proof-of-Concept programme over this summer – eager to take advantage of a unique opportunity to be the first to see Climate X’s data in action.
The company is set to release its final product to the UK market by the end of 2021, with plans for rapid international expansion in 2022.
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