AI-powered climate risk insurtech Reask nabs $6.5m funding for expansion

AI-powered climate risk analytics insurtech  Reask has raised $6.55 million funding as it looks to enter the US and expand its extreme weather modelling and hazard coverage to growing markets.

The funding was co-led by Mastry Ventures and Collaborative Fund, with participation from Macdoch Ventures and existing pre-seed investor Tencent, alongside pre-seed investors SV Angel and Hawktail.

Reask provides high-resolution weather risk analytics and forecasting to calculate the severity and frequency of extreme weather events. By applying AI across multiple sources of climate data, Reask delivers proprietary weather modeling algorithms that learn climate physics to offer dynamic forward-looking representations of atmospheric risk.

The insurtech said this approach provides critical insights and intelligence to insurers and asset managers, which need more accurate weather catastrophe forecasting but are limited to unreliable and inadequate methods based on static historical statistics.

A key focus for Reask and its technology is tropical cyclones, which have caused in excess of $1 trillion in total economic damage globally over the last ten years, according to Aon's report. Less than 50% of those economic damages were insured. The severity of damage from tropical cyclones are projected to worsen with climate change, posing an alarming and growing threat to organisations worldwide.

With its latest funding, Reask plans to add more hazard coverage and grow its team internationally to better service customers in growing markets.

“The ability to accurately forecast and measure the behavior of tropical cyclones has always been extremely challenging, especially given their complex interaction with the climate and propensity to damage land-based observational equipment,” said Jamie Rodney, CEO of Reask.

“Organizations need a clearer view on how extreme weather is changing, so they can adequately prepare for any impact to their physical assets, infrastructure, business models, and customers. Our goal is to bring this information more quickly and efficiently to people and industries so we can help those who need it most and before there is an urgent need for help.”

Co-founder and general partner Sam Landman at Mastry Ventures, added: "Ballooning industry loss rates, most recently underscored by State Farm & Allstate’s complete withdrawal from new policy issuance across home and commercial lines in California, illustrate why new approaches to extreme weather risk management must be adopted. Reask’s team has spent years investing in their technology platform, which has now been validated by many of the world's most sophisticated leaders in risk analysis. We’re excited to see the continued adoption of their product across the insurance and financial services industries and believe the company is well positioned to become the new standard."

Guy Vidra, partner at Collaborative Fund, commented: “Our mission at Collab has always been to support businesses and technology that are pushing the world forward. Reask’s ground-up, physics based approach to climate analytics technology makes it possible to predict the outcomes and risks of extreme weather, allowing insurers to prepare themselves and others for the worst. We’re thrilled to support the Reask team as they continue to build out their capabilities.”

Daniel Swain, climate scientist at UCLA, said: "I'm excited to continue working with Reask to develop innovative methods for better understanding and quantifying the risks of natural hazards like tropical cyclones [and wildfires]. Using approaches deeply rooted in physical science are critical in producing reliable estimates that can keep up with a warming climate, so the Reask approach is one that's designed for today's challenges."

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