FutureProof, a financial technology startup that enables asset managers, banks, and insurance-sector institutions to quantify and manage the financial impacts of climate change, announced its public launch with a $3 million financing led by Innovation Endeavors with participation from MS&AD Ventures and Blackhorn Ventures. It also disclosed partnerships with Tishman Speyer and Equilibrium Capital, among others.
The financial risks and opportunities created by climate change are not well understood, even as trillions of dollars hang in the balance for the financial sector. FutureProof’s mission is to close this gap by projecting the financial implications of climate change, making climate risk actionable for financial professionals.
“The climate risk data available to financial institutions today is largely non-financial in nature, which means it cannot be integrated into financial models. We give organizations the sophisticated tools they need to manage physical climate change risk in financial terms,” said Alisa Valderrama, CEO and co-founder of FutureProof. Bringing environmental issues onto the balance sheet has been Valderrama’s career-long focus, building on her prior work at the World Bank and Natural Resources Defense Council.
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FutureProof is the first climate risk analytics firm using artificial intelligence to project climate-linked financial losses, in dollars-and-cents terms, based on the specific characteristics of each asset. FutureProof enables financial institutions to quantify the dollar value of current and future climate-linked financial losses to physical structures, bonds, and over 50,000 public and private companies.
“The ‘proof’ that FutureProof is a revolution in climate risk modeling? Customers are incorporating our asset-specific projections in their financial models,” said Dr. Ashby Monk, a co-founder of FutureProof and Director of the Global Projects Center at Stanford University. “With FutureProof’s tools, the financial system can properly price physical climate risk and surface opportunities to improve climate resiliency.”
FutureProof is also announcing today that it is making its tools available free of charge to financial regulators, amid stepped-up efforts to regulate the financial implications of climate change by the Biden Administration, state governments around the U.S., and regulators and multilaterals across the world.
“FutureProof is making its tools available to financial regulators so that they can better manage climate-related risks to financial stability,” said Dr. Alexander Gelber, a co-founder of FutureProof and a former senior official responsible for economic policy at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
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FutureProof was founded in 2019 by a team of Ph.D. economists, Ph.D. climate scientists, and technologists. Some vital statistics:
- A single FutureProof subscription offers unlimited access to its platform via API, as well as through an easy-to-use web app allowing data downloads, visualization, and automated reports.
- FutureProof’s global projections cover all six populated continents under multiple climate scenarios from the present to 2100.
- Users can assess the reductions in climate-linked losses they would achieve through investments in resiliency.
- Organizations can sign up under a freemium model to gain access to some of FutureProof’s functionality free of charge.
“Climate risk and resilience are urgent global issues, and FutureProof’s analytics are game-changers,” said Sam Smith-Eppsteiner, a partner at Innovation Endeavors. “What excites us about FutureProof is their laser focus on translating climate risk into usable, financial projections. The entire financial industry has been waiting for a tool like this.”
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