Google Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of online search engine Google, has joined a consortium backing two of its former employees who set up WeatherBill, a US-based weather insurer and has raised $42m in its series B round.
The other members of the consortium were media-focused investment banks Allen & Company and Code Advisors and venture capital firms Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Index Ventures, First Round Capital and Atomico. WeatherBill’s A round raised $12.5m in November 2007 after previous angel funding.
Bill Maris, managing partner of Google Ventures, said: "Google Ventures’ mission is to identify and fund big ideas – and WeatherBill’s vision of helping farmers adapt to climate change aligns perfectly with that mission.
"WeatherBill’s founders, CEO [chief executive], David Friedberg, and CTO [chief technology officer], Siraj Khaliq, are ex-Googlers, so it’s understandable that they are working on turning the big problem of climate change into a big opportunity."
Friedberg said: "Global agriculture production is more than $3 trillion per year, and it is at risk today from extreme weather conditions, as evidenced by the recent droughts in Russia and China and extensive flooding in Australia, which have decimated global commodity supplies.
"More than 90% of crop losses are due to unexpected weather and climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. Dedicated to addressing this global concern, WeatherBill is applying the use of our technology platform to become the first company to provide every farmer – from the developing world to the technologically sophisticated – with a simple and effective solution for removing weather-related risk from their financial profile, in order to support and ensure the sustainability of the global food supply."