# William Ross

> William Ross is the CEO and Co-Founder of Federato, an AI-native insurance technology company that has raised $180M including a $100M Series D led by Goldman Sachs. A Stanford-trained researcher who published wildfire modeling research at NeurIPS 2021, Ross left a career spanning IBM Watson and Venrock to build what the industry calls a 'RiskOps' platform - bringing portfolio-level intelligence to daily underwriting decisions across the $1 trillion+ P&C and specialty insurance market. Federato's revenues tripled year-over-year and the platform now powers insurers managing hundreds of millions in gross written premiums.

- **Role:** CEO & Co-Founder at Federato
- **Organizations:** Federato, IBM Watson, Venrock, Stanford University, Science & Arts Engagement (NYC), Endeavor Global
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BA, Philosophy and Environmental Science, Tufts University, MS, Climate and Atmospheric Modeling, Stanford University, MBA, Stanford Graduate School of Business
- **Known for:** Raised $180M total for Federato including a $100M Series D led by Goldman Sachs, Co-authored wildfire AI research presented at NeurIPS 2021, Tripled Federato's revenues year-over-year

## Career timeline

- **pre-2016** — Earned BA in Philosophy and Environmental Science from Tufts University
- **2016-2019** — Manager of Corporate Development at IBM Watson; educated 1,000+ executives through Udacity's AI for Business Leaders program
- **2018-2020** — AI Researcher at Stanford; wildfire and hurricane modeling; met co-founder William Steenbergen in Steve Blank's Lean LaunchPad course
- **pre-2020** — Earned MS in Climate and Atmospheric Modeling and MBA from Stanford University
- **pre-2020** — Investor at Venrock; developed early concepts for Federato
- **2020** — Co-founded Federato in March 2020 with William Steenbergen
- **2021** — Co-authored NeurIPS 2021 paper 'Being the Fire: A CNN-Based Reinforcement Learning Method to Learn How Fires Behave Beyond the Limits of Physics-Based Empirical Models'
- **2021** — MISSION insurance became anchor customer, eventually launching 30+ programs with $500M+ GWP
- **2024** — Raised $40M Series C
- **2025-11** — Raised $100M Series D led by Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives; total funding reaches $180M
- **2026** — Revenues tripling year-over-year; featured on NYSE TV discussing Orchestrate platform

## Achievements

- Raised $180M total for Federato including a $100M Series D led by Goldman Sachs
- Co-authored wildfire AI research presented at NeurIPS 2021
- Tripled Federato's revenues year-over-year
- Built the RiskOps category in insurance technology
- Educated 1,000+ executives on AI through Udacity's AI for Business Leaders program while at IBM Watson
- Board member at Science & Arts Engagement (NYC), supporting STEM for underrepresented youth
- Mentor at Endeavor Global for entrepreneurs
- Received TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy funding at Stanford for wildfire research

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — Crowdfund Insider profiled Ross as 'uberizing insurance' with Federato's platform
- **2025-11** — Federato closed $100M Series D led by Goldman Sachs; total funding reaches $180M
- **2025-05** — Appeared on Profiles in Risk Podcast (Episode 669) discussing Orchestrate and Submission Triage
- **2025-05** — Featured on NYSE TV Live discussing Federato's Orchestrate platform and company direction
- **2025-09** — Appeared on Scouting for Growth Podcast discussing RiskOps and underwriting transformation

## Links

- Website: https://federato.ai
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/williamross826
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/willr_leopold

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/william-ross
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-20