We are proud to announce Inventure’s investment in value.space’s €2.1 million seed round together with Specialist VC, Superangel, Lemonade Stand, BADideas.fund, Amalfi and Linnar Viik.
It goes without saying that power grids, water systems, transportation networks, and communication systems are load bearing structures that support our normal daily life. Any disruption to these systems have far-reaching consequences.
That’s where insurance comes in. Insurance companies play a crucial role in this system by managing the risks associated with critical national infrastructure as they provide coverage for potential losses resulting from physical damage. By doing so, they help reduce the financial impact of these events on the affected organizations and on the wider economy.
But today if you wanted to check if the dam or structure you’ve insured is shifting slightly, you’d have to send a survey team. Evaluating these structures and preventing risks is a time consuming and expensive process.
Enter Value.Space 🛰️
value.space’s mission is to use satellite-based technology to revolutionise how the global insurance industry and the public sector assesses and protects Critical National Infrastructure.
By using high-tech radar technology from the European Space Agency, among others, it provides millimetre level accuracy assessments of infrastructure, identifying previously undetected deformations which can be signals for potential infrastructure failure. value.space has already produced more than 3500 risk profiles for large infrastructure objects in 70 countries or jurisdictions around the world.
Conducted 100% remotely, x10 faster and x25 more cost effectively than manual inspections, these assessments play a crucial role in helping insurers with their risk assessment of infrastructure sites to inform their underwriting decisions. The team realised early on that their satellite based technology could ensure safety for areas of national interest, and save money and lives. Case in point, a breach at Piney Point’s largest retention pond in Florida was discovered in 2021 which triggered the evacuation of 300 homes. value.space’s technology identified signs of risk already in 2017 and could have prevented the breach.
value.space, which has headquarters in the UK and in Estonia, already works with several tier one insurers internationally. The co-founders Reijo Pold and Agu Leinfeld bring together many years of both strategic and technical competence at the convergence of AI, big data and satellite technologies.
The team decided early on that the best way to bring this technology to the masses (and to save more lives) was to focus on the industry that has the most control over critical assets — the insurance industry. As more insurers integrate value.space’s technology in their underwriting process they will enable more accuracy, accountability and profitability.
Investing in Value.Space. Investing in the Baltics.
Value.space is headquartered in the UK, but we’re proud to add another company with deep Estonian roots to our portfolio. One of the first investments we made out of Inventure IV was in Tallinn-based Jobbatical, continuing a long Inventure history in the Baltics that started in 2012.
What keeps us coming back is the talent and innovation coming from the region’s founders. Value.space is a perfect example. While the opportunities in their home markets are limited due to size, Baltic companies look to global markets already in the very early stages of their go-to-market plan, which is exactly the attitude we love to see.
According to the latest data from PitchBook, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania collectively raised $1.1 billion in venture capital funding in 2022, an increase of 19% from the previous year. If you compare that to the rest of Europe, the Baltic region accounted for a relatively small percentage of overall venture capital investment in 2022, however, the growth rate in the region is higher than the average for Europe, which saw a 13% increase in venture capital investment in the same period.
Inventure is actively contributing to the Baltic start-up scene. We had a great time at TechChill where we moderated the discussion between our former portfolio company Nordigen and their acquiror GoCardless. We also hosted a kick-ass party together with our friends at Atomico and local hero’s Change Ventures.
