July 22, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Some of the top investors in the agtech space have backed an oversubscribed $12 million Series A for ClimateAi – a pioneer in applying AI to climate risk modeling. 

Led by Radical Ventures, the round also included Finistere Ventures and Robert Downey Jr.’s FootPrint Coalition Ventures. Existing investors who also participated were Neotribe, AMECloud, and ThirdStream Partners.

This strategic funding will accelerate the global rollout of ClimateAi’s initial solutions for agriculture with the company aiming to be deployed across a half a billion acres of global farmland within the next three years.

“Across the Finistere portfolio, we’ve seen dramatically disrupted supply chains,” said Spencer Maughan, co-founder and partner, Finistere Ventures. “The convergence of climate volatility and a shift in consumer demand have left inventory management and supply planning in utter disarray. This is ClimateAi’s sweet spot, and we are excited to partner with Himanshu and the team to empower global supply chains to better manage climate risk.”

The ClimateAi ECP platform offers users actionable insights in regard to climate risks that are tailored to their specific supply chain. With this information, customers can optimize their supply chain operations vis a vis production planning, demand estimation, and inventory management, and improved strategic supply chain planning to minimize exposure to climate risk, and to identify new locations for agricultural expansion that are well-suited for specific crops.

This platform is the only one of its kind that can assess climate risk based on specific business metrics, correctly forecast extreme weather more than two weeks in advance, and then provide insights across a supply chain, or even according to a specific asset.

“Adapting to the impacts of climate change is critical to the future of our economy and essential to our future as a species,” said Jon Schulhof, co-founder, FootPrint Coalition Ventures. “ClimateAi is a platform that provides long-term insights into weather and climate impacts, providing businesses the information they need today to take the actions needed now to adapt to the climate disruptions of tomorrow.”

To-date, ClimateAi’s vertical SaaS solutions have assisted more than 15 producers, processors, seed companies, and leading agricultural financiers significantly improve their profitability and sustainability in regard to climate change.

“We approached ClimateAi because we’ve seen the impact that climate change has already had on our business, in terms of driving production volatility,” said Doran Yonay, global seed production director, Hazera.

“ClimateAi’s machine learning models link climate forecasts to the metrics we care about: expected inventory size and quality of our offering. We expect our partnership to continue to grow as we focus on adapting to climate change and are readily exploring the potential for ClimateAi’s platform to become the AI-backend of our enterprise.”

With global temperatures climbing at an alarming rate, the global supply chain faces $1.26 trillion in environmental risks over the course of the coming five years, according to CDP. Likewise, the most recent World Meteorological Organization forecast predicts more erratic weather patterns and another “warmest year on record” to be recorded by 2025, bringing intense heat, extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and other impacts that will seriously strain our critical supply chain. 

“As economies navigate the realities of climate change, the ClimateAi platform brings much-needed resiliency to our fragile global supply chains – from food and agriculture to industrial, energy and beyond,” said Schulhof of FootPrint Coalition Ventures, which was launched earlier this year by actor, producer, and philanthropist Robert Downey Jr. with the mission to accelerate groundbreaking technologies addressing our most threatening environmental challenges through a unique rolling fund in partnership with AngelList. 

FootPrint Coalition Ventures comprises two funds. The first, a Pre-Seed – Series A fund, and the second, a later stage Series B and beyond fund that will both focus on six verticals: food and agriculture tech; sustainability-focused consumer products and services; materials and industrial tech; energy and transportation; education and media; and advanced environmental solutions.

Under the terms of this round, Parasvil Patel of Radical Ventures will join the ClimateAi Board of Directors.

“Historically, generalized linear models have been used to forecast the impacts of climate on supply chains, but have been proven to be a woefully inadequate planning basis for the significant majority of industries worldwide already impacted by climate,” said Kittu Kolluri, another ClimateAi board member and founder and managing director of Neotribe Ventures and former board member of Climate Corporation. “Applying cutting-edge AI techniques to solve these problems, ClimateAi is poised to become the enterprise climate platform for businesses worldwide.”

– Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.