Request for Startups
This isn’t an exhaustive list of ideas we’d like to fund, but if you’re building something in one of these areas, reach out.
Request for Startups
This isn’t an exhaustive list of ideas we’d like to fund, but if you’re building something in one of these areas, reach out.
New Ways to Trade Disaster Risk
Building the financial infrastructure for physical risk
Wildfire, flood, heat, and drought are no longer background noise — they show up in insurance availability, utility rates, municipal budgets, mortgage risk, and corporate continuity planning. Yet the financial tools for dealing with those risks have not kept up. Reinsurance still renews in annual cycles through blunt instruments traded over dinners in Bermuda. Catastrophe bonds are opaque and specialized. Parametric products exist only in niches. Mitigation projects struggle to find capital even when their social value is obvious.
The big challenge in creating markets for catastrophe risk is counter-party risk: can the counter-party absorb the size of the losses they are signing up for in the event things go bad? This has relegated the market to a small club of large and trusted capital pools who are sophisticated enough and sufficiently capitalized to offer these contracts.
We think new market mechanisms like smart contracts, stablecoins and other types of decentralization could be a solution to this and allow a broader set of participants to transact and introduce new ways to price risk.
We want to meet founders building the financial infrastructure for physical risk. That could be event oracles for disasters, geospatial settlement layers, standardized parametric contracts, prediction markets for physical risk, assurance contracts for resilience projects, or new capital transfer mechanisms that connect mitigation investment to whoever benefits from fewer losses. We are not looking for casino-style products that profit from bad outcomes — we want tools that make risk legible, priceable, and transferable before a loss happens.
The opportunity is large because physical risk is everywhere and the current financial system handles it poorly. If you have a background in insurance, reinsurance, exchanges, geospatial data, structured products, or regulated financial markets, we'd love to hear from you.
New Ways to Trade Disaster Risk
Building the financial infrastructure for physical risk
Wildfire, flood, heat, and drought are no longer background noise — they show up in insurance availability, utility rates, municipal budgets, mortgage risk, and corporate continuity planning. Yet the financial tools for dealing with those risks have not kept up. Reinsurance still renews in annual cycles through blunt instruments traded over dinners in Bermuda. Catastrophe bonds are opaque and specialized. Parametric products exist only in niches. Mitigation projects struggle to find capital even when their social value is obvious.
The big challenge in creating markets for catastrophe risk is counter-party risk: can the counter-party absorb the size of the losses they are signing up for in the event things go bad? This has relegated the market to a small club of large and trusted capital pools who are sophisticated enough and sufficiently capitalized to offer these contracts.
We think new market mechanisms like smart contracts, stablecoins and other types of decentralization could be a solution to this and allow a broader set of participants to transact and introduce new ways to price risk.
We want to meet founders building the financial infrastructure for physical risk. That could be event oracles for disasters, geospatial settlement layers, standardized parametric contracts, prediction markets for physical risk, assurance contracts for resilience projects, or new capital transfer mechanisms that connect mitigation investment to whoever benefits from fewer losses. We are not looking for casino-style products that profit from bad outcomes — we want tools that make risk legible, priceable, and transferable before a loss happens.
The opportunity is large because physical risk is everywhere and the current financial system handles it poorly. If you have a background in insurance, reinsurance, exchanges, geospatial data, structured products, or regulated financial markets, we'd love to hear from you.
New Ways to Trade Disaster Risk
Building the financial infrastructure for physical risk
Wildfire, flood, heat, and drought are no longer background noise — they show up in insurance availability, utility rates, municipal budgets, mortgage risk, and corporate continuity planning. Yet the financial tools for dealing with those risks have not kept up. Reinsurance still renews in annual cycles through blunt instruments traded over dinners in Bermuda. Catastrophe bonds are opaque and specialized. Parametric products exist only in niches. Mitigation projects struggle to find capital even when their social value is obvious.
The big challenge in creating markets for catastrophe risk is counter-party risk: can the counter-party absorb the size of the losses they are signing up for in the event things go bad? This has relegated the market to a small club of large and trusted capital pools who are sophisticated enough and sufficiently capitalized to offer these contracts.
We think new market mechanisms like smart contracts, stablecoins and other types of decentralization could be a solution to this and allow a broader set of participants to transact and introduce new ways to price risk.
We want to meet founders building the financial infrastructure for physical risk. That could be event oracles for disasters, geospatial settlement layers, standardized parametric contracts, prediction markets for physical risk, assurance contracts for resilience projects, or new capital transfer mechanisms that connect mitigation investment to whoever benefits from fewer losses. We are not looking for casino-style products that profit from bad outcomes — we want tools that make risk legible, priceable, and transferable before a loss happens.
The opportunity is large because physical risk is everywhere and the current financial system handles it poorly. If you have a background in insurance, reinsurance, exchanges, geospatial data, structured products, or regulated financial markets, we'd love to hear from you.
Extreme Heat
Adapting to a hotter world
We believe the companies that help society adapt to extreme heat will become category-defining businesses and improve the lives of billions of people.
Extreme heat already kills more people globally than any other climate hazard, and in the US it's deadlier than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. Extreme heat is the fastest-growing climate hazard, yet the least invested-in category in disaster resilience.
Heat touches everything: people, ecosystems, and infrastructure, and nearly every part of the economy feels its effects. By 2030, heat stress is projected to cut global working hours by 2.2%, causing $2.4 trillion in annual losses. Cooling and energy demand are surging, utilities face heat-related grid constraints, roads and rail buckle, crops fail, and insurers are struggling to price the risk.
The biggest opportunities may include: heat detection and forecasting; passive cooling (i.e., cooling without additional electricity demand); thermal management for grid infrastructure; solutions to protect workers; rapidly scalable solutions for cooling the outdoor environment; new insurance and financing products; and medical interventions to avoid heat illness and death.
If you’re working on something in this space, reach out.
Extreme Heat
Adapting to a hotter world
We believe the companies that help society adapt to extreme heat will become category-defining businesses and improve the lives of billions of people.
Extreme heat already kills more people globally than any other climate hazard, and in the US it's deadlier than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. Extreme heat is the fastest-growing climate hazard, yet the least invested-in category in disaster resilience.
Heat touches everything: people, ecosystems, and infrastructure, and nearly every part of the economy feels its effects. By 2030, heat stress is projected to cut global working hours by 2.2%, causing $2.4 trillion in annual losses. Cooling and energy demand are surging, utilities face heat-related grid constraints, roads and rail buckle, crops fail, and insurers are struggling to price the risk.
The biggest opportunities may include: heat detection and forecasting; passive cooling (i.e., cooling without additional electricity demand); thermal management for grid infrastructure; solutions to protect workers; rapidly scalable solutions for cooling the outdoor environment; new insurance and financing products; and medical interventions to avoid heat illness and death.
If you’re working on something in this space, reach out.
Extreme Heat
Adapting to a hotter world
We believe the companies that help society adapt to extreme heat will become category-defining businesses and improve the lives of billions of people.
Extreme heat already kills more people globally than any other climate hazard, and in the US it's deadlier than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined. Extreme heat is the fastest-growing climate hazard, yet the least invested-in category in disaster resilience.
Heat touches everything: people, ecosystems, and infrastructure, and nearly every part of the economy feels its effects. By 2030, heat stress is projected to cut global working hours by 2.2%, causing $2.4 trillion in annual losses. Cooling and energy demand are surging, utilities face heat-related grid constraints, roads and rail buckle, crops fail, and insurers are struggling to price the risk.
The biggest opportunities may include: heat detection and forecasting; passive cooling (i.e., cooling without additional electricity demand); thermal management for grid infrastructure; solutions to protect workers; rapidly scalable solutions for cooling the outdoor environment; new insurance and financing products; and medical interventions to avoid heat illness and death.
If you’re working on something in this space, reach out.
The Second Grid
The future of reliable, resilient energy
For over a century, electricity has followed a relatively simple model: large centralized generators produce power, transmission networks move it across long distances, and end users consume it. That model will continue to grow. Expanding and modernizing the grid will remain one of the largest infrastructure challenges of the coming decades.
But now, a second layer of power infrastructure is beginning to emerge. Instead of relying exclusively on centralized generation, power will increasingly be produced closer to where it is consumed—at data centers, factories, campuses, communities, critical infrastructure sites, and commercial facilities.
The future will not be centralized or distributed generation. It will be both.
For most of modern history, the question was how to connect people to power. Increasingly, the question may be how to bring power directly to people, companies, and machines.
We are interested in founders building the technologies, financing models, and operating systems that make that possible. The winners may build reactors, microgrids, autonomous power systems, or entirely new categories of infrastructure. Some of the most important companies in this transition may not look like energy companies at all.
Historically, electricity generation benefited from scale. Increasingly, however, reliability, resilience, deployment speed, and proximity to demand are becoming equally important. As a result, we expect entirely new forms of generation infrastructure to emerge alongside the traditional grid.
Throughout history, major economic expansions have followed major expansions in energy supply. We believe a new layer of power infrastructure is beginning to emerge alongside the grid, and many of the companies that define it have not yet been built.
The Second Grid
The future of reliable, resilient energy
For over a century, electricity has followed a relatively simple model: large centralized generators produce power, transmission networks move it across long distances, and end users consume it. That model will continue to grow. Expanding and modernizing the grid will remain one of the largest infrastructure challenges of the coming decades.
But now, a second layer of power infrastructure is beginning to emerge. Instead of relying exclusively on centralized generation, power will increasingly be produced closer to where it is consumed—at data centers, factories, campuses, communities, critical infrastructure sites, and commercial facilities.
The future will not be centralized or distributed generation. It will be both.
For most of modern history, the question was how to connect people to power. Increasingly, the question may be how to bring power directly to people, companies, and machines.
We are interested in founders building the technologies, financing models, and operating systems that make that possible. The winners may build reactors, microgrids, autonomous power systems, or entirely new categories of infrastructure. Some of the most important companies in this transition may not look like energy companies at all.
Historically, electricity generation benefited from scale. Increasingly, however, reliability, resilience, deployment speed, and proximity to demand are becoming equally important. As a result, we expect entirely new forms of generation infrastructure to emerge alongside the traditional grid.
Throughout history, major economic expansions have followed major expansions in energy supply. We believe a new layer of power infrastructure is beginning to emerge alongside the grid, and many of the companies that define it have not yet been built.
The Second Grid
The future of reliable, resilient energy
For over a century, electricity has followed a relatively simple model: large centralized generators produce power, transmission networks move it across long distances, and end users consume it. That model will continue to grow. Expanding and modernizing the grid will remain one of the largest infrastructure challenges of the coming decades.
But now, a second layer of power infrastructure is beginning to emerge. Instead of relying exclusively on centralized generation, power will increasingly be produced closer to where it is consumed—at data centers, factories, campuses, communities, critical infrastructure sites, and commercial facilities.
The future will not be centralized or distributed generation. It will be both.
For most of modern history, the question was how to connect people to power. Increasingly, the question may be how to bring power directly to people, companies, and machines.
We are interested in founders building the technologies, financing models, and operating systems that make that possible. The winners may build reactors, microgrids, autonomous power systems, or entirely new categories of infrastructure. Some of the most important companies in this transition may not look like energy companies at all.
Historically, electricity generation benefited from scale. Increasingly, however, reliability, resilience, deployment speed, and proximity to demand are becoming equally important. As a result, we expect entirely new forms of generation infrastructure to emerge alongside the traditional grid.
Throughout history, major economic expansions have followed major expansions in energy supply. We believe a new layer of power infrastructure is beginning to emerge alongside the grid, and many of the companies that define it have not yet been built.
Space Junk
Waste Management for Low Earth Orbit
On a clear night, you can see roughly 10,000 active satellites orbiting earth. That number could realistically increase 10x over the next five years.
What you can’t quite see are more than a million sizable pieces of trash circling earth at breakneck speed. That number is also poised to multiply.
Collisions can incapacitate expensive satellites and create thousands of new pieces of debris. NASA scientist Donald Kessler frets about a self-propagating chain reaction where debris multiplies exponentially in LEO, rendering certain orbits unusable for a generation or longer.
As a result of debris, operators like Starlink are forced to invest in expensive collision avoidance systems. Each maneuver burns propellant and decreases the life of the unit. Space insurers are increasingly unwilling to underwrite risks tied to debris.
Space will be a $1 trillion economy by the end of the decade. The incentive to keep orbits clear is massive, and the companies that ensure clear skies will be generational. The ideal solution will be reusable, multi-mission, and capable of remediating different sizes and types of debris.
If you’re building a solution for space trash, we’d love to hear from you.
Space Junk
Waste Management for Low Earth Orbit
On a clear night, you can see roughly 10,000 active satellites orbiting earth. That number could realistically increase 10x over the next five years.
What you can’t quite see are more than a million sizable pieces of trash circling earth at breakneck speed. That number is also poised to multiply.
Collisions can incapacitate expensive satellites and create thousands of new pieces of debris. NASA scientist Donald Kessler frets about a self-propagating chain reaction where debris multiplies exponentially in LEO, rendering certain orbits unusable for a generation or longer.
As a result of debris, operators like Starlink are forced to invest in expensive collision avoidance systems. Each maneuver burns propellant and decreases the life of the unit. Space insurers are increasingly unwilling to underwrite risks tied to debris.
Space will be a $1 trillion economy by the end of the decade. The incentive to keep orbits clear is massive, and the companies that ensure clear skies will be generational. The ideal solution will be reusable, multi-mission, and capable of remediating different sizes and types of debris.
If you’re building a solution for space trash, we’d love to hear from you.
Space Junk
Waste Management for Low Earth Orbit
On a clear night, you can see roughly 10,000 active satellites orbiting earth. That number could realistically increase 10x over the next five years.
What you can’t quite see are more than a million sizable pieces of trash circling earth at breakneck speed. That number is also poised to multiply.
Collisions can incapacitate expensive satellites and create thousands of new pieces of debris. NASA scientist Donald Kessler frets about a self-propagating chain reaction where debris multiplies exponentially in LEO, rendering certain orbits unusable for a generation or longer.
As a result of debris, operators like Starlink are forced to invest in expensive collision avoidance systems. Each maneuver burns propellant and decreases the life of the unit. Space insurers are increasingly unwilling to underwrite risks tied to debris.
Space will be a $1 trillion economy by the end of the decade. The incentive to keep orbits clear is massive, and the companies that ensure clear skies will be generational. The ideal solution will be reusable, multi-mission, and capable of remediating different sizes and types of debris.
If you’re building a solution for space trash, we’d love to hear from you.
