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… only remaining so in perception as awareness lags.
Of course I am biased, having invested in Weatherbill, which is at the vanguard of transforming weather risk markets:
(via J. Scott Mathews, WeatherEX LLC) The weather market was built upside down, which is quite a feat, even for financial engineers. What we mean is that it started on the wholesale level without any retail underpinnings. It started out like a castle in the air…The changes coming in 2010 for the weather derivative …
The always interesting Bill St. Arnaud pointed me in the direction of this interesting speech by Jeremy Rifkin who talks about the convergence of a quantum advance in communication and energy technologies leading to a “third industrial revolution”. Clearly talk of the “smart grid” is not new and we may actually be well on our way to the “peak of inflated expectations” but this does not take away from the much much bigger picture that this convergence will be fundamentally transformational:
The same design principles and smart technologies that made possible the internet, and vast distributed global communication networks, will be used to reconfigure the world’s power grids so that people can produce renewable energy and share it peer-to-peer, just like they now produce and share information, creating a new, decentralized form of energy use. We need to envision a future in which millions of individual players can collect, produce and store locally generated renewable energy in their homes, offices, factories, and vehicles, and share their power generation with each other across a Europe-wide intelligent intergri
And although it is probably too early for us, I am extremely optimistic about the very exciting investment opportunities I see coming down the pipe because of this revolution. No we aren’t planning to add to or change the investment focus of Nauiokas Park to green tech or clean energy. What I am alluding to is the opportunities that will emerge to create new markets, market structures and participants when the world’s energy becomes a truly networked, digital commodity. Imagine a world (not so many years away) where tools like Google PowerMeter are as widely adopted as Google Search or Skype. And distributed micro-generation (solar, wind, micro-generators, etc.) and micro-storage. All connected, all digitized. Generating vast amounts of data and transactions. And you’ve got yourself a market. Sure, I here you say, energy markets already exist and by the way are pretty big. No big deal here, move along. Well, it’s not perfect but I would suggest comparing the financial markets of the 1970s to the financial markets of today, to get a sense of the quanta of change we should expect in energy markets – with the concomitant risks and opportunities this will present. And I suspect it will all happen a bit more quickly: one decade instead of three(?)
I know it’s not the done thing, but despite all the doom and gloom I can’t help but to get more optimistic every day about all the truly exciting opportunities that are bubbling up in harmony with the new industrial and economic paradigm that is dawning. (Which is not to disagree with the doom and gloom – for those people, companies and industries stuck in the old paradigm there isn’t much to cheer about, and it must be especially galling for those who were leaders in this old world order.)
A couple years ago I saw a great presentation (on climate change and business) that pointed out that while in every other country in the world ‘sex’ was the most common search term on Google, in the United Kingdom it was ‘weather’. And ‘property’ isn’t far behind (source: Google Trends):
(compare to results for ‘All Regions’:)
So you can understand why we invested in Weatherbill and Zoopla… (There were a few other considerations as well, but this makes for a more fun story.)
So where was I…? Oh, that’s right, I just wanted to draw attention to Zoopla’s nifty new property value widgets and what a great addition they would make to any website targeting a British audience. The great thing is that it’s not just UK or England or even London prices you can track but areas and postcodes. Local is the new global. (Or something like that.) Write a blog for hedge fund managers? Keep the readers coming back with a nifty NW8 price tracking widget for example:
Or appeal to their bonus envy with this cheeky London Dream Homes listings widget:
I’d be willing to bet it has more pulling power than showing the latest price on the FTSE100 index…
A second issue was that the processor, although a key component of personal computers, was only a component. To effectively market this component to the PC buyer it was important to work with the manufacturer of computers. After all, the processor was buried deep inside the computer and despite its significance it was hard to tell which processor the PC contained before it was purchased.
Carter and his team studied successful consumer marketing techniques and examined tactics used by well-known companies supplying a component or ingredient of a finished product, like NutraSweet™, Teflon™ and Dolby™. They also began a variety of marketing experiments and soon began envisioning how a branded ingredient program would play out in the computer industry.
Key to this strategy was gaining consumer’s confidence in Intel as a brand and demonstrating the value of buying a microprocessor from the industry’s leading company, the pioneer of the microprocessor. At the suggestion of its advertising agency, Dahlin Smith and White, Intel adopted a new tag line for their advertising: “Intel. The computer inside.” Using this to position the important role of the processor and at the same time associating Intel with “safety,” “leading technology” and “reliability,” the company’s following-and consumer confidence-would hopefully soar. That would create a new “pull” for Intel-based PCs. Later, this tagline was shortened to “Intel Inside.”
The important role of the microprocessor was being communicated, but to be truly effective the ingredient status of the microprocessor needed to be dealt with. In 1991 Carter launched the Intel Inside® coop marketing program. The heart of the program was an incentive-based cooperative advertising program. Intel would create a co-op fund where it would take a percentage of the purchase price of processors and put it in a pool for advertising funds. Available to all computer makers, it offered to cooperatively share advertising costs for PC print ads that included the Intel logo. The benefits were clear. Adding the Intel logo not only made the OEM’s advertising dollar stretch farther, but it also conveyed an assurance that their systems were powered by the latest technology. The program launched in July 1991. By the end of that year, 300 PC OEMs had signed on to support the program.
The PC business ultimately was redefined by this – moving to a barbell of high volume commoditized assemblers/distributors (Dell) and high value specialist niche players (Alienware) and of course the fully integrated hardware/software approach of Apple. The same thing will happen in financial services over the next 10-20 years. Only the ‘Intel inside’ isn’t hardware (except maybe for some high end high frequency trading applications where I think you’ll see people starting to design and sell custom chipsets…) but financial widget providers. FaaS or Haas or RMaaS. (For the few remaining bankers that read my blog and are scratching their heads, these are not tickers or Bloomberg functions – or if they are that’s not what I’m referring to – but acronyms for Finance or Hedging or Risk Management ‘as a Service’…) These will in turn get mashed up by enterprising distributors and channel managers to offer all sort of customer (from the head to the tail) the package of financial services and products that is right for them. This is what the mega-fauna of global finance (retail, commercial and investment banks in particular but also life and property insurance companies, brokers, asset managers, etc.) do now, in house, although the concept of “open architecture” on a fund management platform for example is a sort of distant evolutionary predecessor.
A more apt existing business model along these lines – that practitioners in the retail trading and FX markets will be particularly familiar with – is white labeling. Indeed companies like Saxo Bank have done extremely well with very sophisticated and industrialized white label partnership programs. You want to offer your customers trading on FX, FX Options, Forwards, Spot Gold & Silver, CFDs, Stocks, Futures, etc? Just plug into their machine and you’ve got yourself a trading engine and infrastructure. You want to offer your customers weather insurance? No problem – just grab Weatherbill’s new white label solution:
The WeatherBill White Label platform enables any third party to offer weather coverage to their clients, written on their paper, and using their distribution channels. It is an innovative end-to-end technology platform for pricing, transacting, settling, and managing weather risk. WeatherBill White Label creates new revenue streams and growth opportunities for insurance companies and weather derivative dealers, allowing them to leverage WeatherBill’s technology to offer fully automated, customizable weather coverage to their clients.
For any company who has customers that could use weather insurance in the context of their relationship with this company, this would seem to be a no-brainer; you don’t need to re-invent the wheel, weather algorithms and derivatives processing are probably not your core business and/or is not where you want to deploy resources. Outsource it. Add a plug-in. Did you write your own mapping software to show where your offices are on your ‘Contact Us’ page? No, you used Google or Multimap etc. and integrated it into your site and/or your service. It’s as simple as that, and makes just as much sense.
Ok full disclosure: I just totally made up the silly marketing claim in the headline…but the good folks at Weatherbill have just launched a new, sexier, easier to navigate website. Check it out and please send them feedback – the good, but especially the bad and ugly – either in the comments here or on their blog.
I’m going to miss the farmer though…we hardly knew him at all.
This year we wanted to go one step further to give you extra peace of mind. We will give passengers who book flights, car hire and hotels direct* with Flybe in January 2009 free of charge travel cancellation cover in the event of redundancy prior to travel. Offer excludes the self employed and those who have had less than 2 years continuous employment and who do not qualify for statutory redundancy pay as per Statutory Redundancy legislation.
It seemed potentially interesting as yet another example of risk management tools being given to consumers. So I thought it would be interesting to look at the fine print…
Ignoring the irony that the policy backing up this offer is underwritten by AIG UK Limited…I was pretty disappointed (but not surprised) by what I found. Firstly, you are only paid if you cancel your trip. This is totally lame. If you lose your job, you’ll likely be more inclined to take the holiday/family visit/etc. you have booked. Further I’m not sure everyone will realize they only get reimbursed if they cancel, (even though to be fair to flybe they make it clear that it is cancellation coverage…)
On the other hand, I guess if it were true redundancy insurance, you might have a serious adverse selection problem (and AIG would charge more?) even though the terms state that “at the time of booking your trip, you had no reason to believe that you would be made redundant” (does that exclude then everyone who works for a bank? or for AIG UK?)
Anyhow while this particular offer is more gimmick than substance (as opposed to the iTravel Let it Snow promotion underwritten by Weatherbill for example), I think it is indicative of a growing trend to providing consumers with granular risk management tools.
As you may recall, a couple months ago Weatherbill announced a partnership with Priceline, underwriting a promotion they ran that would reimburse the cost of your holiday package if it rained more than half the days during your stay.
In June, 12% of Priceline’s site traffic clicked on a promotion. While the Sunshine Guarantee promotion may attract only a niche audience (0.2% of Priceline shoppers), those who do click on this promotion are highly likely to convert – an impressive 24% of Sunshine clickers will complete a booking. Despite attracting relatively few clickers, it resonated with its audience and led to strong conversion rates, showing just how effective a smaller, targeted promotion can be.
I’m sure we’ll see more and more of these sorts of embedded derivatives in weather-sensitive consumer products. While you may go to the time and effort of directly hedging your wedding, the average person – even if they were aware of an easy-to-use product like Weatherbill – probably will be too busy/apathetic/forgetful to hedge something smaller – like a day out golfing. But embed the coverage into the product (or at least make it as easy as ticking a box) and I think demand will be very high. The days of “NO RAIN CHECKS” are surely soon behind us…
Under the limited-time Sunshine Guaranteed promotion launched today, customers who book a qualifying Priceline vacation package between June 2 and July 17, 2008 and travel between July 1 and September 7, 2008 will be eligible for a refund if their vacation is rained out. For full details on Priceline’s Sunshine Guaranteed promotion, visit: http://www.priceline.com/promo/sunshine_guarantee.asp
Brett Keller, priceline.com’s Chief Marketing Officer commented, “Ten years ago with our Name Your Own Price® launch, and more recently with our elimination of booking fees on published-price domestic and international airfares, priceline.com has demonstrated a commitment to continually innovate in order to get great deals for our customers. Now we’re also offering them great weather. Best of all, these Sunshine Guaranteed vacations are available at the same great prices we offer for all of our packages. Our customers can book their Sunshine Guaranteed trips and rest assured that there’s a silver lining waiting if Mother Nature doesn’t cooperate.”
There is no additional charge to book a Sunshine Guaranteed vacation package. Qualifying vacation packages must be 3-8 days in length. Travel must commence at least 12 days after a package is purchased. If it rains more than 0.50 inches per day on half or more of the days of a Sunshine Guaranteed vacation (including travel days), priceline.com will provide a refund for 100% of the cost of airfare, hotel, rental car and attractions and services components of the Sunshine Guaranteed vacation package.
It would seem obvious to anyone who has ever boarded an airplane that weather is a primary factor in determining whether or not any given flight will take-off and/or land on schedule. The impact of adverse weather conditions is even more acute for commercial flights using increasingly congested major airport hubs, with the complexity of managing thousands of co-dependent paths within the network. This weather-driven uncertainty has a real and measurable financial impact on carriers and air travelers including (but not limited to): extra fuel, maintenance and staff costs, customer compensation (or at the very least poor customer satisfaction); and for their customers lost time and productivity (not just on delayed flights as customers are forced to ‘build-in’ the uncertainty implicit in the flight schedules to their planning.)
In the past, there was no practical way to price and manage this risk; the transaction costs and computational intensity of trading and managing such a granular and complex set of weather risks would have certainly outweighed the potential benefits. Today however thanks to accelerating technological advances in computing and communications, and taking inspiration from the creative application of technology to pricing, managing and distributing risk derivatives pioneered by innovative young companies like Weatherbill, this is clearly no longer the case. I would go so far as to posit that any CEO and/or Board of a commercial air transport business is at risk of breaching their fiduciary duty if they are not seriously contemplating how they can manage and mitigate weather risk in their operations. At the very least, it should be quantified and reported – much in the way fuel-price risk now is – and any hedging (or deliberate decision not to hedge) strategy articulated and explained to shareholders and any relevant regulatory bodies.
Between June 2003 and April 2007, over 25% of all flights in the United States were disrupted
(either cancelled or delayed). More than 55% of those disruptions (almost three million) were
due to weather- the leading cause of flight disruptions in the U.S. In an effort to educate airlines,
airports, and consumers about their weather risk, WeatherBill has identified the most sensitive
airports and airlines to adverse weather to facilitate reliable estimates of future flight disruptions.
Fifty-four major airports and sixteen larger airlines were studied. There are three main results:
1. WeatherBill can statistically quantify the relationship between weather delays and
observed temperature and precipitation at major U.S. airports and airlines
2. The study shows that disruptions are more common with precipitation than temperature
3. Temperature-linked delays are seasonal
We have included a list of the top five airlines and airports with the highest & lowest
percentages of weather disruptions at the end of this summary. Those lists are already widely
available. What follows immediately are lists of airlines, airports, and their delay sensitivity to
precipitation and temperature, in minutes. WeatherBill hopes this new data will help the flight
industry and travelers better understand their weather delay risk.
I would suspect that most (all?) of the airlines would have there own detailed data on this, so it is unlikely (I would hope!) that anything in this report will come as a big surprise but I would be curious to know how (if?) they apply this data in managing their business (setting schedules, pricing, etc.) Having quantified the risk, you might think the next logical step would be to initiate a risk management program to monitor and potentially manage (through trading granular weather derivative contracts) this risk dynamically. While I think this is a sine qua non for anyone managing an airline, I believe there is a much more exciting opportunity (than simply mitigating downside risk) that arises from the ability to measure and manage economic sensitivity to weather: the opportunity to build such an advanced knowledge of operational risks into the customer proposition. So what exactly am I talking about? Well, at the simplest level to illustrate, an airline could sell ‘weather-protected’ tickets: tickets offering for example a full or partial (or variable) refund for weather related delays or cancellations. Not only would this improve the customer experience, but would be very helpful in offering a differentiated price based on time-sensitivity of the traveler: a business person going on a day-trip for a critical client meeting vs a university student traveling home for the vacation probably have a different sensitivity to the ‘cost’ of a delay or cancellation. Or maybe not. The point is, let the customer pay accordingly. It wouldn’t be perfect – there is basis risk involved – and I suspect that from a marketing/adoption point of view there would be an optimal level of complexity (accuracy) vs simplicity in structuring these sorts of deals; and obviously it wouldn’t necessarily ‘change’ the outcome (weather is weather) but those customers who most valued their time would be compensated accordingly.
This dynamic (weather-) risk adjusted approach to pricing and management would also be relevant to airports and private charter or air taxi operators. Airports – especially those run ‘for profit’ – could build weather sensitivity into their landing and operational fees. For private aviation, while generally less subject to the negative weather-related knock-on effects endemic to the large commercial ‘hub’ airports, the relative importance of weather on flight disruptions is almost certainly higher than for commercial airlines (being less exposed to the other primary causes of flight disruptions (as defined by the US DoT): carrier delays, security delays, and late arrival of an earlier leg.) Also given the use of smaller aircraft, the sensitivity to adverse weather may also be greater in some cases (than for large commercial aircraft.) This approach would also be relevant for air cargo operators and given their concentrated hub operations and expertise in highly sophisticated logistical optimization, one could argue that implementation would be easier for companies like FedEx and UPS. (One problem however might be finding enough risk capacity on the ‘other side’ for Memphis…)
The Weatherbill study points out that (due to a lack of data and complexity beyond the scope of their paper) they did not consider ‘wind’ risk in their study, although they suggest that this is likely to some extent to be embedded in the temperature risk in some regimes (ie disruptions correlated with high summer temperatures may well reflect higher convective winds and/or thunderstorms related to these high temperatures.) However, there is no (technical) reason why over time sufficient (and sufficiently granular) relevant data on windspeed couldn’t be captured and used in pricing models up to and including in real-time. This would require data-capture not just at ground stations (airports) but in the air (aircraft) but the technology exists and the cost of transmission, storage and computation have (or will soon) declined sufficiently to make using what would be an incredibly vast and dynamic data set tractable (in a way that it would not have been even 5 years ago.)
You may recall I touched on this subject (dynamic outcome-driven air transport pricing) previously; and while weather risk management would be a good start in terms of bringing airlines into the 21st century, in my opinion a much deeper and more fundamental reappraisal of their business model is called for. Fundamentally, airline seats (or on any carrier for that matter) are substantially fungible – ie a ticket gives the right for one person to travel from point A to point B. Ok, Ok … before you get the pitchforks out – yes there is a difference in value between a seat on a Gulfstream V and the middle seat in row 34 on DiscountAirways… but the differences are relatively easy to understand and so I believe would be (mostly) efficiently priced in an open market. But ok, for the sake of simplicity, let’s set aside private or charter operations for the moment, and concentrate on scheduled commercial airlines. What you have today is a fragmented and reasonably opaque primary market* and no real efficient secondary market. (*Although the advent of the internet generally, and a number of innovative start-ups specifically has vastly improved the situation from that of a decade ago…) Why is this? Practically speaking it is because the airlines don’t want to allow transferability – they are unable or unwilling to embrace the fact that what they are selling is a commodity. That they are selling the transport of packets on a network. It’s an ego thing. They think they would lose out. Putting aside the fact that most of these companies have lost billions of dollars over decades (so I’m not sure what they think they have to lose), I am convinced that by encouraging a robust and complete secondary market in airline seats, not only would consumers win (through more transparent and rational (supply/demand) driven pricing) but the airlines – at least the well-managed ones – would be huge winners. First they would be able to save money by eliminating (or redeploying more productively) the boffins they currently pay to build ridiculously complex and customer un-friendly pricing schemes in the vain hope of optimising a priori load factors and revenues, and instead be able to focus on managing their assets, optimizing their routes and schedules and making their customers happy (insofar as they could see a return on this investment from a structurally higher secondary price for their seats.)
Stop for a moment and think how fundamentally this would change the paradigm of running an airline – load factor would disappear as a relevant metric because by definition, every seat on every flight would be theoretically ‘sold’ – ie would have a market price (which in some cases may admittedly be zero…) – it would make explicit the fact that an airline is actually long a portfolio of options and could – using the feedback loop implicit in a robust secondary market – seek to manage this portfolio in such a way as to maximize the premium income. Part of this strategy would involve deciding when and how many seats to sell in the ‘primary’ market, and may in some cases involve also buying – yes buying – back seats in the secondary market as demand dynamics change. I sense that many of you are still uncomfortable with the heterogeneity of the market – ie the lack of fungibility – and the impact that would have on the liquidity of a secondary market. Perhaps this analogy will help: think of the (corporate) bond market – by definition it is much more complex and heterogeneous than the ‘equivalent’ market in common equity. Not only are there differences in the credit quality between companies (think different service levels, seat coverings, entertainment systems, airport lounges…) but even for the same company their are securities with different characteristics (maturities, seniority, coupons, etc.) (think flight times, class of service, changeability, etc.) – none of which inhibits the market from operating. Furthermore, the price signals this market sends with respect to these variables are important inputs for optimizing the management and balance sheet structure of these same companies. By allowing the CFO to see the relative cost and cost volatility of having a BBB vs a AA financial structure, she is much better able to make a decision as to which is best for her shareholders. In the same way, an airline executive would be able to better understand if his investments in customer service or in-flight entertainment provided positive returns to the shareholder (based on an average per-seat premium reflected in the market.)
I imagine that a further argument against such a market would be ‘security’ (ie ‘identity’): the airlines (and various government agencies) need to know who is travelling in any given seat. Well again – thanks to technology – this is a red herring argument. There is no reason to believe that in a world of ubiquitous mobile phones, electronic payments and fulfillment that this ‘problem’ is not entirely tractable. Indeed, to take the securities markets as an example – due to various ‘know-your-customer’ and anti-money laundering statues – the days of anonymously trading bearer certificates are long gone; and yet the number of participants and transactions in financial markets has never been higher. So yes, any secondary market would need to robustly and accurately identify the ultimate ticket holder but this would not be a problem. (Additionally, in the first stage I would imagine it would probably make sense to start with a market that ended T-1 – ie not allow trading in the last 24hrs before a flight – which would significantly remove or mitigate a number of potential operational risk factors arising from such a market. Once these risks were better understood and engineered around, one could imagine eventually allowing trading up to the moment the flight closes for boarding.)
You may recall that in my earlier post, I mentioned Farecast as one of a variety of companies innovating intelligently in this space. This is a company that was on my “IRWIWHHTOTI” (I-really-wish-I-would-have-had-the-opportunity-to-invest) list (for reasons I hope would be clear to my regular readers…) Unfortunately, they have just sold themselves to Microsoft. Why do I say unfortunately? (1) There is now no chance to invest in or buy the company. (2) Microsoft has a long and not-so-illustrious reputation for buying really interesting and innovative companies (good) and then having their own big-corporate antibodies attack and often kill said innovation and energy (not so good.) (See here for more thoughts on Microsoft.) I hope this doesn’t happen to Farecast (in the same way I hope CBS won’t kill last.fm) but let just say I’m cautiously pessimistic. I am entirely sympathetic to the founders – liquidity is important (you can’t pay mortgages with ‘potential’ upside) and understand how the structural constraints of the mainstream VC business model drives the logic of this kind of exit. But the combination of these factors leads from time to time to what I would consider excellent opportunities to deploy smart, unconstrained capital. Since this is something I personally have limited amounts of (alas) I will be working to convince others of the merits of this view, with the goal of being able to act on a small number such opportunities when they arise in future…
Many of the issues that would be faced in creating such a market are very similar to those faced by secondary markets in live event tickets. Whilst, I wouldn’t want to distract the founders and executives of the companies pioneering in this space (against much hysterical and illogical reactionary resistance from some of the incumbent market participants,) I wonder if they might be available in a year or two’s time to sit down with me and my partners and construct a plan to turn this vision into a reality. Or I wouldn’t be surprised if someone were already working on it. If so I’d love to know more.
WeatherBill had a couple of exciting announcements yesterday (see TechCrunch and Red Herring.) Firstly they raised a further $12.5 million of capital from a group of investors including Index Ventures, NEA, Atomico Investments and Allen & Co. I also participated, and have been an investor in the company from the start (and have previously written about the company a number of times.) Even more exciting is the news that they are now offering coverage of a number of European countries (the United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, and Norway.) The opportunity in the UK is particularly exciting given the island nation’s changeable climate and its citizen’s well-documented obsession with the weather.
weather sex football business politics
Too bad they aren’t pricing France yet: England could hedge against good weather this weekend in Paris – I’m sure cold and rainy would suit them much better than it would the Springboks!
Anyhow, here is the press release:
Web 2.0 Summit, San Francisco, CA – WeatherBill (www.weatherbill.com) the world’s only online service that allows businesses to protect revenue and control costs from the impact of bad weather, today announced the close of a $12.5 million Series A round, that when combined with earlier funding totals $16.8 million. The round was led by investors New Enterprise Associates (NEA) and Index Ventures, with participation from Allen & Company, Atomico Investments, and Sean Park. Existing investors include First Round Capital and several angel investors. Following the close of the investment, Kittu Kolluri, a partner at NEA, and Neil Rimer, a partner at Index Ventures, will join WeatherBill’s Board of Directors. The company also announced that Barney Schauble, a partner at Nephila Capital, WeatherBill’s risk capacity partner, will join the Board.
“Climate change isn’t just making the weather more unpredictable, it can have a significant impact on corporate profits,” said Kolluri. “There’s high demand for financial protection against unexpected weather. WeatherBill’s technology, backed by Nephila’s world leadership in catastrophe reinsurance, creates a unique and valuable financial solution for businesses of all sizes.”
WeatherBill is working with a diverse roster of clients in weather-sensitive industries that include agriculture, travel, leisure, and retail. Clients include ski resorts, farmers, restaurants, travel service providers, and outdoor sports and leisure event managers.
“It’s now estimated that nearly one-third of the US economy, that’s $3.8 trillion, is at risk because of climate change,” said Rimer. “With that much at stake, weather-sensitive businesses need to understand their risk and then be able to protect their profits quickly and affordably. The experienced team at WeatherBill is helping businesses of all sizes do just that.”
The funding will help fuel WeatherBill’s rapidly growing business in the United States and Canada, and expand the company’s service to five new European countries this week: the United Kingdom, Germany, The Netherlands, Spain, and Norway.
“This funding allows us to offer our clients more customizable weather protection as we add additional locations to our service, offer newly supported weather conditions, and enhance the ease of purchase,” said David Friedberg, CEO and co-founder of WeatherBill. “Strong investment support and advice from these market leading investors is invaluable and will result in more accessible and affordable weather protection for businesses worldwide.”
New Enterprise Associates (www.nea.com) is helping fund more than 550 companies in the IT and healthcare sectors. NEA is the entrepreneur’s venture capital firm; built on the philosophy of team achievement and measures success by their entrepreneurs’ success. NEA helps entrepreneurs build strong businesses for the long term, not the quick turn.
Index Ventures (www.indexventues.com) is an European venture capital firm with offices in London, Geneva and Jersey and a portfolio of leading technology and biotech companies across Europe, Israel and the US. The Index team is committed to working with the best entrepreneurial teams and helping them to build their companies into market defining global leaders.
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