It can be difficult to comprehend non-linear trends, whether appreciating how savings compound over time, or the velocity with which diseases spread. So, while we know that we are dangerously close to environmental tipping points that could lead to disastrous shifts in the Earth’s climate, it’s often hard for us to understand how these changes will impact us.
How will the blistering heat, which set a global record this week, change our lives, businesses, economies and societies? What do record-setting ocean temperatures mean for the coral reefs at our beloved beaches and for the increased risk of flooding or hurricanes in our backyards?
Because climate change's impact is non-linear, our default mental models have a hard time figuring out the answer, and these answers are critical if we’re to adapt and build resilience against climate change. We need to understand, quantify, and translate climate risk into simple financial, economic and actionable terms.
That is where modeling the physical risks associated with climate change comes in. The field of climate and atmospheric modeling has made massive advancements over the decades, but still remains extremely challenging due to the immense number of co-dependencies, uncertainties, and computational demands to simulate such complex and vast systems. In speaking with dozens of researchers and teams in this space over the years, we’ve come to appreciate the unique challenges of modeling the likelihood of physical climate events like flooding, wildfire, and hurricane winds today, and how they will change in the future. It’s clear the planet is warming at an alarming pace, and humans are the cause, but getting precise about the implications is the challenge.
Tools that exist today, including FEMA’s flood maps, are inadequate, siloed, and difficult to use. In addition, these incumbent products use a black box approach that leaves users guessing as to how the results were derived — a limitation for companies looking to fulfill their climate disclosure obligations. Furthermore, the data often isn’t tailored to the specific building or asset at risk. These inadequacies leave millions of people and businesses vulnerable to severe physical and economic damage.
Enter First Street. First Street uses a bottoms-up, physics-based modeling approach that yields highly granular climate models for every property in the United States, and surfaces risks for citizens, industry, and government. Crucially, First Street’s approach leverages transparent, peer-reviewed methodologies to calculate the past, present, and future physical damages alongside economic losses — a contrast to existing alternatives in the market.
First Street’s software products are already being used across leading government agencies, financial institutions, and other enterprises, including Fannie Mae, PNC Bank, and Redfin. When you look to buy or rent a home, you can see First Street’s risk scores across major real estate portals, making it easy to understand the risk that climate change poses to that property. We believe that, soon, every organization and individual will need to factor climate change into their decision-making. We expect First Street will become a trusted provider of models and products to enable us to make better, safer, decisions.
We were blown away when we met the First Street team, spearheaded by founder and CEO Matthew Eby, who has spent over a decade working to better define and understand America's climate risk. His team includes a deep bench of scientific and business expertise: Dr. Ed Kearns serves as First Street’s Chief Science Officer and is deeply embedded in the scientific community, serving as an Advisory Committee Member on both the NASA Applied Sciences Advisory Committee and the Climate-related Financial Risk Advisory Committee; Chief Product Officer, Quinn Hawkins, brings a wealth of product expertise from both Redfin and Microsoft; and board member Scott Stephenson is the former Chairman and CEO of Verisk.
The team’s ability to inspire, envision, and execute made it easy for us to lead the Series A-1 to accelerate First Street’s global expansion alongside new investors SE Ventures and Nuveen Real Estate, and existing investors Galvanize, General Catalyst, and Congruent Ventures. We are thrilled to welcome First Street to the Innovation Endeavors family, and we look forward to supporting the team on the journey ahead!
