HomeFundingUK-based Cervest secures €24.6 million to launch new AI-powered Climate Intelligence platform

UK-based Cervest secures €24.6 million to launch new AI-powered Climate Intelligence platform

Today UK-based Cervest, the creator of one of the world’s first AI-powered Climate Intelligence (CI) platforms, has announced it has raised an approx. 24.6 million Series A round led by Draper Esprit. 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 around 29.7 million.

Founded in 2016, 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.

The startup’s fresh funds come at a time of accelerating climate volatility. The team states that the persistence and interaction of extreme weather events is putting trillions of dollars of physical assets at risk. They warn that 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 US 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.

Vinoth Jayakumar, Partner and Fintech Practice Lead at Draper Esprit, who will also join Cervest’s Board of Directors, said: “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.”

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Charlotte Tucker
Charlotte Tucker
Charlotte is the previous Editor at EU-Startups.com. She spends her time scouting the next big story, managing our contributor team, and getting excited about social impact ventures. She has previously worked as a Communications Consultant for number of European Commission funded startup projects.
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