Risilience Raises $8.4M Series A Investment Round

Risilience’s ambitious growth trajectory aligns well with businesses as they take action to combat climate change risks. Over the past two years, the team has been helping companies at the forefront of managing their risks from climate change, including Nestlé, Burberry, Reckitt, easyJet, Maersk, Informa, Abrdn, and AXA XL. The current corporate client base of Risilience has committed to remove a combined annual 240 million tonnes of CO2e emissions – the equivalent of the annual carbon emissions produced by Spain.

A fifth of all large corporations have now committed to a net zero target, and many others are set to do so in coming months. Risilience estimates that inaction would significantly erode the earnings value of many businesses within the next few years from increased costs of carbon taxes and consumer and investor pressures. By proactively taking action to transform their businesses now, the business benefits far outweigh the implementation costs. However, achieving the net zero target is a long and complicated process for large organisations, and many businesses don’t yet have a clear strategy in place to achieve this goal.

Risilience provides solutions which apply the approaches pioneered by the Centre for Risk Studies at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, from which it spun out. Cambridge has a world-leading reputation for the application of climate science, combined with corporate finance and scenario development – using behavioural science and economic modelling. The Risilience platform incorporates datasets and tools for businesses to quantify the risks they face from inaction and assesses the benefits they will gain from deploying the right management strategies.

The Series A funding round included lead investor IQ Capital, the investment arm of National Grid plc., National Grid Partners (NGP), insurance multinational Tokio Marine, and US MIT alumni investment fund Castor Ventures.

Dr Andrew Coburn, CEO of Risilience, said: “We are delighted to have the support of IQ Capital, National Grid Partners, Tokio Marine Holdings, and Castor Ventures in our ambitious plan to provide world-class solutions for businesses to de-risk their exposure to climate change. We selected these investors for their ability to partner with us and add expertise and access to key market sectors.”

Kerry Baldwin, Managing Partner of IQ Capital who led the round, commented: “Risilience combines the technology, science, customer base and academic rigour to make a real and practical difference in the fight against climate change. This is an example of a British business helping the world’s largest companies to achieve and evidence net zero transition.”

Tokio Marine is investing in Risilience to facilitate new insurance products and services to protect commercial businesses from the risks of climate change and incentivise sustainable practices in their corporate client base.

Castor Ventures, which builds diversified venture portfolios for alumni of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is investing in Risilience to propagate emissions management technology in US businesses.

About Risilience

Risilience is a deeptech, data-driven analytics platform enabling corporations operating around the world to understand the transformational benefits of effective enterprise risk management and how to prioritise implementation. Risilience brings a detailed understanding of management science to the challenges of transforming businesses. Resilience’s products and services give business leaders a competitive advantage in managing their risks and opportunities from climate change and other enterprise risks through its application of research frameworks pioneered by the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies at the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School. The Risilience platform’s company-specific analysis provides detailed, quantified results to support strategic decision making and business planning while balancing investment requirements driven by future scenarios.

The founders of Risilience are Dr Andrew Coburn, CEO; Professor Danny Ralph, Chairman; Dr Michelle Tuveson, Chief Client Officer; and Simon Ruffle, Chief Product Officer. They combine many years of experience of commercial risk modeling with academic leadership in business studies for risk management.

About IQ Capital

IQ Capital is the leading deeptech venture capital firm based in London and Cambridge that invests in early-stage deeptech businesses using hard-to-replicate technology in massive global markets – across sectors including software, hardware, materials, health tech and life sciences. IQ Capital was nominated for Venture Capital Fund of the Year 2021 at this year’s GP Bullhound Investor Allstars.

IQ Capital’s 50+ portfolio companies are visionaries and address some of the largest problems in the world to dominate their respective markets on a global scale and grow rapidly to become sector leaders. Our initial investments at Seed and Series A range from £0.5m to £10m, with capacity for follow-on investment up to £30m through our Growth Fund.

The IQ Capital team has achieved over 20 exits, to companies including M&A to Apple, Google, Facebook, Oracle and several IPOs. IQ Capital has led over 30 investments in the last three years in outstanding companies including Thought Machine, Privitar, FNA, Paragraf, causaLens, Neurovalens, Concirrus, Fluidic Analytics, CybSafe, Nyobolt.

About National Grid Partners

National Grid Partners (NGP) is the venture investment and innovation arm of National Grid plc., one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world. National Grid Partners invests in the global transformation of energy, with interests that include the Next Grid Alliance. NGP is partnering with Risilience to support utility companies in providing infrastructure that will integrate renewable energy to power the transformation of society to a net zero economy.

About Tokio Marine

Tokio Marine Group consists of Tokio Marine Holdings and its subsidiaries and affiliates located worldwide, operating extensively in the non-life insurance business, life insurance business, and financial and general businesses. As the oldest and largest Japanese property/casualty insurer (established in 1879), Tokio Marine Group has been expanding its business globally from the domestic non-life insurance business to the life insurance business and the international insurance business. With a presence in 46 countries and expanding, Tokio Marine ranks as one of the world’s most globally diversified and financially secure insurance groups.

About Castor Ventures

Castor Ventures is a network-powered venture capital fund for a community of MIT alumni investors, entrepreneurs, and friends. Part of Alumni Ventures, we create and offer diversified and personalized venture portfolios for accredited investors, investing alongside other established venture firms in a broad range of ventures. Our network is our source of capital and differentiation. Our community enables us to access exciting new investments and add value to our portfolio companies. We seek to grow, engage and learn with an inclusive community of stakeholders to create difference-making ventures.