Why we invested in Inrisk Labs
Bessemer Venture Partners leads Inrisk's Seed fundraise.
Insurance shouldn't be about uncertainty—it should provide clarity and reliability when organizations need it most. Yet as climate risks intensify globally, traditional insurance often fails to deliver the speed and certainty that businesses require.
The world saw $280 billion in losses from natural disasters in 2023, with only $100 billion insured. In India alone, weather-related losses reached $56 billion between 2019-2023. Traditional indemnity-based insurance, with its manual assessments and lengthy claims processes, struggles to address these mounting challenges. We're witnessing a critical shift where innovative insurance solutions aren't just beneficial—they're essential for business continuity and resilience.
This is why we're excited to back Inrisk Labs, a pioneering insurtech building parametric insurance products for India's agriculture and weather-sensitive sectors. Inrisk Labs is revolutionizing how organizations manage climate risks by leveraging cutting-edge climate data, actuarial science, and technology to deliver swift, reliable insurance payouts.
Inrisk Labs transforms insurance with parameter-based precision. Their platform partners with insurers, government bodies, corporates, and research organizations to deliver parametric insurance products that automatically trigger payouts based on independently verifiable indices like temperature, rainfall, soil moisture, or wind speed. This eliminates the uncertainty and delays inherent in traditional claims processes.
The elegance of their solution lies in its simplicity: when pre-defined parameters are met, payouts are triggered automatically. Consider a drought affecting farmland in India – instead of waiting months for manual damage assessments, farmers receive immediate compensation when rainfall drops below critical thresholds. This speed and transparency builds trust while ensuring business continuity.
Our conviction to invest in Inrisk Labs stems from our strong belief in its founding team's unique expertise and vision. In a space where deep industry knowledge meets technological innovation, we believe their combined experience is unmatched. Malay Poddar, former Chairman of Agricultural Insurance Company of India (AIC), brings over three decades of ecosystem expertise. Siddesh, former Chief Risk Officer and Chief Actuary of AIC, provides deep actuarial insights. Together at AIC, they managed $1.7 billion in premiums, representing roughly 50% of India's agroclimatic insurance market. They're joined by Shivakumar, a seasoned data scientist specializing in machine learning frameworks, and Aavrit Singhal, who brings over a decade of insurance marketing and product management experience.
The market opportunity is substantial. In India alone, one crop insurance scheme generates nearly $3.5 billion in premiums, with a rapidly growing emphasis on technology-based parametric products in the market. The potential extends across agriculture, disaster management, and energy insurance markets – each increasingly adopting these solutions.
We're thrilled to partner with Malay, Siddesh, Shiva, and Aavrit as they build a global data-driven climate risk mitigation platform. Through their vision of reshaping climate risk management with cutting-edge technology, they're not just transforming insurance – they're building resilience across industries and communities worldwide.