Cervest secures $30 million in Series A funding to launch world's first AI-powered Climate Intelligence platform and lead new $40 billion market
Draper Esprit, Astanor Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Future Positive Capital, and TIME Ventures participate in financing round
LONDON, May 20, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Cervest, creator of the world's first AI-powered Climate Intelligence (CI) platform, today announced it raised a $30 million Series A round led by Draper Esprit. Cervest seeks to help enterprises, financial services companies, and governments quantify climate risk down to the asset level and, for the first time, across multiple decades and threats. Current investors Astanor Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital (Chris Sacca), and Future Positive Capital also participated in the oversubscribed round, joined by new investors UNTITLED, the venture fund of Magnus Rausing, and TIME Ventures, the venture fund of Marc Benioff. This financing brings Cervest's total funding to $36.2 million.
The investment comes at a time of accelerating climate volatility where the persistence and interaction of extreme weather events is putting trillions of dollars of physical assets at risk. Business and government leaders must factor this risk into their day-to-day operations and strategic decisions alongside preparing for fast-approaching regulatory changes. Equally, financial services, including insurance players, urgently need greater asset-level Climate Intelligence to underpin investment decisions.
Cervest closes this gap with a first-of-its-kind automated Climate Intelligence platform, powered by the company's groundbreaking Earth Science AI technology. Built through extensive, peer-reviewed research over the last five years, the platform combines public and private data sources (i.e. NOAA, ECMWF, CMIP6), machine learning, and cutting-edge statistical science to present a unified view of climate risk that's never before been possible.
EarthScan™, the first product on the platform, gives users on-demand access to current, historical, and predictive views of how combined risks such as flooding, droughts, and extreme temperatures can impact the assets they own or manage. Insights are available across multiple risk categories simultaneously, going back 50 years and looking forward 80 years. EarthScan™ helps users to de-risk business decisions, meet TCFD financial disclosure guidelines, improve asset resilience, and uncover new opportunities to accelerate low-carbon growth.
"Climate Intelligence is business Intelligence for managing climate risk," said Iggy Bassi, Founder and CEO of Cervest. "Climate volatility has thrown us into a new era where Climate Intelligence needs to be integrated into all decisions. Organizations that fail to do so risk being blindsided by climate events such as the recent floods and fires in Australia, the droughts in Europe, and the winter freeze in Texas. By using EarthScan™ to baseline, monitor, and forecast risk, organizations can take action to protect their assets and navigate toward a more resilient future."
Cervest will use the financing to move aggressively into the U.S. and European markets. Through its freemium model, Cervest is providing open access to Climate Intelligence by offering everyone a free, standardized climate risk assessment, spurring new conversations, and fostering an open and common dialogue on shared asset-level risk and opportunities.
"Climate Tech has grabbed a lot of attention recently, with good reason. But solutions come from understanding the problem – Climate Intelligence is a new $40 billion market category which seeks to provide us with answers," said Vinoth Jayakumar, Partner and Fintech Practice Lead at Draper Esprit. "Cervest's pioneering approach to quantifying risk, in a way that was never before possible, means we can better understand the economics of the problem and bring real-world market solutions to bear. We believe Iggy and the team's deep science approach will provide the foundations of the Climate Intelligence market." Jayakumar will join Cervest's Board of Directors.
"Much of the spotlight is on decarbonization today. While this is absolutely necessary, it is not sufficient to build asset-level resilience," said Bassi. "To succeed, we need a complete and unified view of climate risk, simultaneously considering the impact of accelerating physical risks, alongside decarbonization investments and adjacent transition risks as we build a low carbon economy. This is exactly what Cervest will do, enabling everyone to become climate intelligent by making fully informed climate decisions."
About Cervest
Cervest offers cloud-based Climate Intelligence (CI) to enable organizations to manage and adapt to climate risk at an asset-level. Its on-demand, AI-powered platform delivers a standardized, science-based view of climate risk – simultaneously analyzing millions of global assets, across multiple time horizons and risk categories. EarthScan™, the first product on the platform, helps enterprises and governments baseline, monitor and forecast climate risk. Through its open access platform, Cervest incentivizes everyone to share and integrate Climate Intelligence into everyday decisions – protecting the world's critical assets – including our greatest asset, the planet. Cervest is a Certified B Corporation. www.cervest.earth. Follow Cervest on Twitter and LinkedIn.
About Draper Esprit
Draper Esprit is a global venture capital firm that invests in high-growth European technology companies. Draper Esprit's portfolio of privately-owned tech includes outstanding tech companies such as Trustpilot, Revolut, Graphcore, and UiPath. www.draperesprit.com
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