Greentech firm Kita is preparing to blast its way into the UK’s tech sector with the offer of insurance for a decarbonised world.
While the name Kita means ‘north’ in Japanese, the tech startup is based in the south, namely London.
Kita explains: “The climate crisis requires carbon sequestration solutions to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Unfortunately, these solutions lack insurance for their key asset – carbon offsets sold within the voluntary carbon markets. This gap contributes to an environment of uncertainty, holding back development, investment and the ability to scale these solutions at speed to achieve necessary climate impact.”
It wants to be the world’s first “carbon insurer”, using parametric insurance products that address this challenge by guaranteeing the quality and delivery of carbon offsets and negative emission technologies.
At present, the insurtech startup – aka Kita Earth Limited – is in the process of becoming an insurance company, at which point its insurance solutions will be available. There is no timeline for all that, but its noble intentions are clear.
The firm raised £100,000 from Carbon13 in a Pre-Seed round last month to help its greentech and cleantech ambitions.
On LinkedIn, Kita discussed its plans to do proof of concepts, make partnerships, build products, get more investment, get regulatory approvals, hire more staff – and then finally launch.
The three founders of Kita are Natalia Dorfman (CEO), Paul Young (CTO) and Thomas Merriman (CPO). Their experience is a useful and varied mix of climate change projects, business development, Nasdaq, Fidessa, Bloomberg and BNY Mellon.
eWeek UK has reported on other UK-based startups that want a cleaner and better world.
This week, Supernova exploded onto the UK’s fintech scene with plans to illuminate the sustainable investing universe.
Others include Climate X, a London-based firm that provides climate data and analytics; and Edinburgh-based Looper, which offers AI-powered B2B SaaS software to automate building carbon calculation.
Last month, London-based Expect appeared on the scene to offer a decarbonisation management platform for large enterprises and heavy industries. Also in January, data centre solutions provider Celestro popped up with its green-themed launch.
In terms of the bigger picture, there was COP26 in November, where the UK Chancellor talked about the need for “better and more consistent” climate data, sovereign green bonds, mandatory sustainability disclosures, and more.
