Kettle raises $25 million

San Francisco-based reinsurance MGA for wildfire risk and climate change Kettle has raised $25 million in a Series A financing round led by Acrew Capital, with participation from Homebrew, True Ventures, Anthemis, Valor, DCVC, and LowerCarbon Capital.

Founded in 2019 by Andrew Engler and Nathaniel Manning, Kettle is structured as a reinsurance company that can underwrite these growing risks associated with climate change, such as California’s wildfires. 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. Kettle’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.

“We are thrilled to be helping provide insight and relief to the California insurance market. There are 14 million structures in California, and in 2020 ~11,500 of them burned down, less than .1%. While the risks of wildfire have certainly increased over the past decade, the key is understanding exactly where the risk is. If we can do that, we can bring stability back to the California insurance market. Climate change is here, it’s right there in the words – the climate has changed” says Manning. “Now we need to build the best safety net we can to help people recover from these catastrophes.” – Nathaniel Manning, Founder, Kettle.