climate-insurance
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Alex Kubicek Learned to Read Hail. Then He Rewrote the Policy.
A failed rooftop sensor, more than 100 investor rejections and years of hail data turned a Wisconsin atmospheric scientist into an insurance founder. His wager is simple: when risk gets measured at ground level, it can be priced - and prevented - with far more intelligence.
Understory Spent a Decade Measuring Hail. Then It Learned the Money Was in Moving Cars.
The Madison startup began with a clever weather station and a consumer product nobody could use. Its second act turns ground-level storm data into insurance - and gives customers a reason to act before the hail arrives.
The Grid Failed. Adaptive Insurance Paid in Days.
Most insurance waits for proof of loss. This Austin startup watches for the event itself - then turns a dark grid, a flooded home or a brutal deductible into a faster, prearranged path to cash.
Dan Preston
Dan Preston is the co-founder and CEO of Stand Insurance, a San Francisco-based insurtech company using physics-driven AI and digital property twins to insure climate-impacted homes in wildfire and hurricane zones. A Stanford-trained computer scientist, Preston previously led Metromile as CEO from 2014 to 2022, guiding it through a SPAC IPO on NASDAQ and eventual acquisition by Lemonade. At Stand, he has raised $65 million across two rounds and grown the company to over $1 billion in insured value within its first year, with expansion into Florida's catastrophe market. His vision: insurance as an active driver of community resilience, not just a financial safety net.