Mitiga Solutions raises 13 million to predict and prevent natural disasters

Original article by Tino Fernández for Expansión

The funding round has been led by Kibo Ventures, together with the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Nationwide Ventures, Faber Ventures, and CREAS Impacto. It is estimated that climate risks will increase annual property insurance premiums by around 200 trillion dollars by 2040, and that insurance alone will be insufficient to deal with these risks.

Mitiga Solutions, the spin-off of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, is dedicated to solving the inefficiencies of risk models used by the insurance sector and other risk managers using high-performance computing, artificial intelligence, and science. Mitiga has raised 13.25 million euros in a Series A investment round led by Kibo Ventures, and participated in by the Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Nationwide Ventures, Faber Ventures, and CREAS Impacto.

The Funds

With the capital inflow, the company aspires to become the market standard for Climate Score, providing businesses with the necessary tools to assess, measure, and report on the risks associated with climate hazards, while at the same time scaling the use of its physics-based models to help prevent natural hazards from becoming disasters.

In addition to scaling its risk model offering, the funds will also be used to expand its scientific and commercial team worldwide, invest in its cloud architecture, and continue pushing the boundaries of climate science. Mitiga expects to more than triple its revenue in 2023.

Alejandro Martí, CEO and co-founder of Mitiga Solutions, explains that the company's mission is to prevent natural hazards from becoming disasters and expand the boundaries of how their risks are managed and mitigated: "We want to make the world a more resilient and safer place under a changing climate," he adds.

The company operates in Europe with a team of 30 people based in the UK and Spain. Its clients include insurance companies such as AXA Climate, Howden Group, Willis Tower Watson, asset managers and operators such as Group Suez, Indra, Safran, and governmental organizations such as Eurocontrol, UNDP, and non-profit organizations such as the Danish Red Cross.

Against Global Warming

In the last century, carbon dioxide emissions caused by human activity have resulted in an increase of one degree Celsius in the average temperature of the planet's surface. Around 90% of the additional heat has been absorbed by the ocean, which has warmed more than 0.33 degrees Celsius since 1969.

Mitiga Solutions takes into account various dynamic factors, such as climate and geophysical conditions, to better assess the impact of natural hazards caused by climate change. This approach allows for a more precise analysis of risks over time, helping insurance companies, real estate, and financial institutions to better understand and address risks and uncertainties.

The founders of Mitiga Solutions, established in 2018 as a spin-off of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, have focused on solving complex environmental problems for more than 20 years, relying on disciplines such as artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing, geophysics, and numerical weather prediction. They recognized an opportunity in the commercial risk model for the insurance sector and proposed to build a science-based HPC company.

Martí adds that "the traditional risk management tools that rely on past events to predict the future are no longer sufficient, leaving businesses exposed, with their assets abandoned and their reputation at risk." The start-up works with its clients to quantify uncertainty and allow them to make informed decisions.

For his part, Javier Torremocha, co-founder and Managing Partner of Kibo Ventures, asserts that "there is a lot of potential and it is very important to know how to adapt in the sector of technologies for climate management." Torremocha values the proprietary and innovative technology of Mitiga Solutions to help reduce disasters related to climate change.

According to the EU taxonomy, in 2023 all listed companies and entities based in the EU and with more than 500 employees must report on the impacts of physical risk associated with adapting to climate change and mitigating its effects. Companies must perform climate risk vulnerability assessments to ensure they do not cause significant harm to the environment.

Link to the original article: https://www.expansion.com/expansion-empleo/emprendedores/2023/05/18/6465df2ae5fdea893a8b458a.html