Arbol, a global platform for data and blockchain powered climate risk solutions, today announced it transacted $70 million in gross premium in 2021. This marks significant growth and traction for the Arbol platform, which in 2020 transacted $15 million in notional risk and $2.2 million in gross premium. Highlighting Arbol’s focus on a sustainable business model, the company’s risk capacity had a loss ratio under 50% for transacted deals and it also ended the year cash flow positive.
Arbol is a FinTech company offering global climate risk solutions for businesses in the agriculture, energy (traditional and renewable), maritime, and leisure sectors. Arbol’s proprietary pricing platform enables users to get live pricing directly through the app in a matter of minutes. The platform leverages a decentralized climate data network (dClimate), blockchain technology and an AI underwriter designed to price risks efficiently to make parametric protection products and SaaS services accessible and affordable for traditionally underserved and underinsured regions and businesses.
“We created Arbol to make it easy and efficient for businesses of any size or location to build climate resilience leveraging data and blockchain technology,” said Sid Jha, Founder and CEO, Arbol. “Over 50 percent of Arbol’s clients in 2021 entered into climate risk transactions for the first time to reduce impact on revenues and supply chains. This demonstrates not only the urgent need for transparent, blockchain enabled climate risk solutions, but just how many businesses and regions today are underserved by the traditional insurance industry. In addition to being able to offer weather-related, financial products to smallholder farmers in underinsured regions like Cambodia for as little as $11 in premium, we are rapidly making parametric climate risk products more accessible, transparent, and user-friendly for historically underserved stakeholders.”
Arbol’s parametric products are deployed as Ethereum smart contracts. Clients select their triggers, location, and how much they want to be paid if their selected triggers are met when they enter into a transaction. Arbol’s smart contracts automatically trigger when real-world data from the dClimate network indicates that the selected trigger (ex. excess rainfall) has been met during the risk period. Arbol works closely with Chainlink’s decentralized oracle network to secure these smart contracts, which enables real-world, decentralized weather data to be validated and bridged onto the blockchain.
On the client side, Arbol’s footprint grew substantially to include new industries such as maritime, leisure and renewable energy across regions including North America, Europe, and Australia. The majority of new business in 2021 was aggregated or transacted directly from smaller businesses who otherwise find it difficult or impossible to properly manage and hedge climate risk.
The Arbol platform launched in March of 2020 originally catering to businesses in the agriculture industry. The platform now covers a growing range of climate risk variables, including temperature, rainfall, wind speed, crop yield, and many more.
About Arbol:
Arbol is a FinTech company and climate risk solutions platform which leverages decentralized climate data, blockchain technology, and a unique AI underwriter to make weather coverage globally accessible, efficient, and transparent for underserved and underinsured businesses. Arbol offers parametric protection products and SaaS services globally. Clients are able to customize a coverage program and get live pricing in a matter of minutes and a few easy clicks directly through the Arbol platform. Contracts settle and payout automatically using objective, decentralized climate data and Ethereum smart contracts, bringing greater transparency and efficiency to the coverage process and enabling any business in the world with an internet connection to enroll.
