Climate X raises $18M to price climate risk on a digital twin of Earth

A platform that helps financial organisations price the impact of climate change across portfolios of residential and commercial property, plus road, rail and power infrastructure.

Financial institutions will pay for property-level climate risk on a digital twin of Earth — floods, extreme heat and more scored over a 100-year horizon.

$18M Series A (June 2024), led by GV

Lukky Ahmed led stress-testing and risk transformation at HSBC and Lloyds, building Hong Kong stress-testing functions that applied macroeconomic shocks to balance sheets; Kamil Kluza had modelled risk for Barclays, MUFG and Accenture. Meeting at Accenture, Ahmed pitched: 'Let's go and do this for ourselves... Accenture is taking 60% of our work.'

The startup nearly died pre-launch: with payroll due and no VC know-how, the founders remortgaged their Birmingham house. After three or four rejections, Pale Blue Dot said yes with a small check that grew into leading the seed. The team then built a digital twin of Earth from more than 500 trillion data points.

In June 2024 Climate X came out of stealth with the $18M GV-led Series A and is using it to expand into Europe, North America and APAC, against a climate adaptation market the WEF sizes at around $2 trillion.

The niche was validated by exits — Moody's bought Four Twenty Seven, S&P Global bought The Climate Service — proving acquirers value the data, and leaving bank clients asking for independent tools.

The founders sell into their own former world: stress-testing balance sheets against macro shocks is exactly what bank risk teams now must do for climate.

Property-level granularity (1.5 billion assets) beats city-level assessments for decisions like mortgages, insurance and infrastructure investment.

The WEF's $2 trillion climate adaptation market gives the round room to grow into Europe, North America and APAC.

When acquirers absorb a category — Moody's and S&P bought climate-risk startups — the opportunity isn't gone: the buyers' clients now need an independent tool.

As of June 26, 2024, Climate X is deploying the Series A toward expansion in Europe, North America and APAC, with GV's stamp and clients including Legal & General, CBRE and Virgin Money already live.