Jupiter in the news

“We live in a world designed for an environment that no longer exists,” says Rich Sorkin, the co-founder of Jupiter Intelligence, a company that models climate-induced risk. Accepting the reality of what future will look like, he says, is key to planning for it—and studies like this, he says, highlight just how quickly we’ll all have to adapt.

Jupiter Intel’s models, satellite data and sensors help community planners, developers and city officials anticipate challenges such as sea level rise, erosion and impermeable pavement. The company, which has raised $10 million in venture capital funding so far, can predict flood risks down to specific properties, for the near future and years out.

It is what could be defined as the “resilience issue”, the understanding and predicting of the risks related to climate change and their impacts on the horizon of the public and private sector. Jupiter is a startup, which offers services, predictions, and analyses to city officials, insurance companies, businesses, and any other actor in the public arena who deals with urban planning in coastal areas.

Doug Parsons of America Adapts talks with Rich Sorkin, CEO and Co-Founder of Jupiter Intel, about the company’s history and Rich’s short- and long-term goals in this emerging field. Doug and Rich discuss developing businesses in the adaptation sector and how businesses can use smart climate planning to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial meltdown.

Jupiter Intelligence provides climate change and weather event risk-prediction services. The company’s solution is built on a cloud-based platform designed specifically for the rigors of climate analysis. The Jupiter ClimateScore Intelligence Platform links data, probabilistic and scenario-based models and advanced validation in an integrated environment.

A San Mateo startup, Jupiter, is hoping to reduce future devastation caused by floods and severe weather by helping developers and cities predict where the problem areas could be. “The world has been very slow to respond to the science and the events of the last few years that make it crystal clear that in certain parts of the world, risks are getting worse,” said CEO Rick Sorkin.

Predicting how climate change will alter the weather is becoming a flourishing business. The consumers are property owners and businesses that fear a rise in extreme weather — hurricanes, floods or heat waves, for example. Last year set a record for U.S. losses at over $300 billion. Rich Sorkin is seeking them out. Sorkin is CEO of a new company called Jupiter. “Our approach is, look, we’re in the risk business,” he says. What Jupiter sells is risk assessment. How you can dodge the climate bullet? Sorkin’s pitch is blunt: “Hugely important, globally significant, gigantic economic problem, not currently being addressed.”

Where the Trump administration sees waste, the small but rapidly expanding Silicon Valley climate services firm Jupiter Intel sees opportunity.

New Silicon Valley startup Jupiter — boosted by $10 million in venture capital funds — will soon arrive on the South Florida scene to test its climate change calculating software.

The Series C Financing is co-led by Clearvision Ventures and MPower Partners. Jupiter now provides analytics to 30 companies in the Global 2000, U.S. Department of Defense and FEMA to understand the impact of climate change on their physical infrastructure and supply chains, risks to financial portfolios, and vulnerabilities to human health and safety, and to protect over ten billion dollars of physical assets and more than a trillion dollars of financial assets.

Jupiter will join insurance and utility industry leaders along with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and others in a program at San Jose State University’s Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center (WIRC).

Jupiter announced a major expansion of its work in Japan—adding an industry leading Japan-based venture investor MPower Partners. MPower is Japan’s first ESG-focused global venture capital firm and the first female-led VC firm in Japan.

The Columbia Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Applied Physics, and Applied Mathematics, author, and podcast host further strengthens Jupiter’s unmatched scientific expertise. “We are excited that Adam will bring his knowledge and enthusiasm to continue our efforts at providing the economy with the best science possible,” said Josh Hacker, Jupiter’s Chief Scientist and Co-founder.

Leavitt is a legal pioneer on emerging standards of care in the construction and engineering design resiliency of structures that are threatened by extreme weather from climate change as well as the legal ramifications of failing to adapt to climate change.

In collaboration with MS&AD InterRisk Research & Consulting, the goal of the enhancement is to resolve the lack of scientific data and completeness in terms of subject regions, and other issues regarding climate change scenario analysis.

The alliance combines Guidehouse’s utility industry expertise with Jupiter’s global-scale analytics platform to provide clients with a comprehensive and transparent climate change risk assessment as a key part of an advanced integrated planning strategy.

As the Biden-Harris administration renews its commitment to addressing climate change, Jupiter also announced its support for greater federal coordination of climate information services, emphasizing the need for better governance and the formation of a new Federal Climate Service (FCS). Jupiter’s public sector work has accelerated under the new administration, with risk planning and resilience projects underway or complete with the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and multiple other entities within the Executive Branch as well as grant funded work with the National Science Foundation and NASA.

Despite the impact of the global pandemic, Jupiter added several new marquee customers in the past year and looks forward to the Biden Administration’s investments and policies in science, greenhouse gas reduction, and resilience.