Carbon insurtech Kita has launched its full-spectrum Active Risk Monitoring services for the carbon markets. Since March 2024, these services were available to select stakeholders but are now open to a broader market audience.
The expanded offering covers all stages of the carbon lifecycle. Project developers, buyers, and investors gain access to enhanced upfront due diligence and ongoing risk management. This service aims to increase transparency and reduce uncertainty throughout the project cycle.
Kita models risk in ex-ante projects daily as part of its insurance underwriting, which focuses on enabling investment into early-stage projects.
This process has enabled the development of a proprietary risk model built on robust data and industry insights spanning a broad range of market projects.
The representative further explained, “This data model supports Kita’s Active Risk Monitoring services, allowing for comparative project assessments. Near real-time monitoring ensures the risk model remains current and accurate, reflecting the most up-to-date market conditions.”
Key Features of Kita’s Active Risk Monitoring Services
- Risk Assessments: Kita provides objective, cost-effective evaluations of project risks. The analysis focuses on commercial, technical, and political factors. By assessing thousands of data points, including market benchmarks and project-specific information, buyers and investors can make better-informed decisions. Developers can also use these assessments to showcase effective risk management and attract new investors.
- Portfolio Assessments: Companies with existing carbon credit portfolios benefit from ongoing risk assessments and reports. Kita analyzes potential losses and shortfalls across portfolios, identifying risk exposure at both the portfolio and sub-risk level, as well as by carbon type.
- Ongoing Health Checks: Projects insured by Kita receive regular health checks to ensure consistent performance. This process identifies potential issues early, allowing for timely intervention to maintain project stability.
According to Kita, these services demonstrate how insurers can deliver cost-effective risk management to support high-performing carbon projects.
Natalia Dorfman, CEO and Co-Founder of Kita, highlighted the broader role insurance can play in risk prevention.
One of the key benefits of insurance in any market is its ability to not just protect against things going wrong but to use underwriting data for proactive risk management to help things go right
Natalia Dorfman, CEO and Co-Founder of Kita
She added, “Kita is proud to bring this cost-effective risk management to the carbon markets through our Active Risk Monitoring services. By offering an insurability lens on due diligence and quality assessment, alongside proactive risk mitigation, we aim to channel significant global capital into high-quality carbon projects.”
Paul Young, CTO and Co-Founder of Kita, emphasized the importance of comparative project analysis. “In carbon projects, a project’s standalone quality isn’t enough. It’s critical to understand how it measures up against its peers,” he stated.
“By leveraging market benchmarks and proprietary data from our insurance work with ex-ante projects, we can provide this comparative insight. We look forward to offering these services to a broader range of market participants,” Young added.
In 2023, insurtech Kita has secured a £4mn funding round. The funding round was led by Octopus Ventures, alongside Chaucer Group, Hartree Partners, and existing investors Insurtech Gateway, Carbon13, and Climate VC.
The new funding will go towards the launch of the company’s first product, the Carbon Purchase Protection Cover, which insures the purchase of carbon removal credits.
By increasing the trust and protection in carbon removal purchases, it can encourage companies to deploy more capital towards decarbonisation.
Founded in 2021, Kita believes that insurtech is a key way to achieve carbon emission removal goals that are essential to combating climate change.
Insurance can act as a fundamental enabler – by removing risk and increasing trust in the market, insurance will help drive capital to help quality carbon removal projects scale.
