USA – Kettle, a San Francisco, CA-based reinsurance startup that uses advanced deep learning to protect people from risks associated with climate change, raised $4.71m in seed financing.
The round was led by True Ventures, with participation from Acrew Capital, Homebrew Ventures, Anthemis, and Inspired Capital. Founded by Andrew Engler and Nathaniel Manning, Kettle uses deep learning and proprietary algorithms to reshape the reinsurance industry and protect people from the growing risks associated with climate change. Its first product protects Californians’ businesses, homes, and livelihoods with wildfire reinsurance. California wildfires have grown rampant over the past five years. So far in 2020, the largest fourteen wildfires have destroyed more than three and half million acres in California. Leveraging a form of machine learning called swarm intelligence, the company’s model predicted all fourteen of these fires were in the top 20 percent of areas most likely to burn across California’s hundred plus million acres. Kettle’s technology and proprietary algorithms use terabytes of data from public and private data sources, such as NOAA weather data and NASA’s MODIS and LIDAR satellites. The company’s neural networks run upward of 140 million model parameters to calculate probabilities of fire damage at the half square mile resolution across the state. 20/10/2020
