Floodbase, a Brooklyn, NY-based startup that operates an intelligence engine to help assess and insure flood risk, announced a major rebrand along with a $12M Series A. Lowercarbon Capital led the funding round, with participation from Collaborative Fund, Floating Point and Vidavo.
Who’s Floodbase? The artist formerly known as Cloud to Street is working to map the world’s flood risk. Back in June, CEO Bessie Schwarz told Payload that her company “is the authority on tracking floods globally in near-real-time, using satellites, AI, and a variety of other types of new data.”
Now, the company’s engine pulls data from a combination of historical data, satellites, and ground-based sensors to provide insights on flood risk and measure flood damage in near real-time. The company serves insurers looking to improve their parametric flood policies, which are triggered by weather events and pay out according to the intensity of those events.
The big picture: The effects of climate change are raising flags about the possibility of more destructive and widespread flooding as global water levels rise and many areas see increased precipitation.
When disaster strikes, insurers are able to use data from companies like Floodbase to offer parametric insurance policies. Using parametric insurance policies, insurers are more likely to write profitable flood insurance policies, and policyholders receive payouts more quickly after storms come by.
“This technology will enable the expansion of flood insurance to every corner of the globe, and bridge a protection gap that cannot be closed without parametric insurance,” Schwarz said in a press release.
