Convective Capital Raises $85 Million Fund for Disaster Resilience

Convective Capital announced an $85 million fund on Thursday to invest in technologies that address disaster resilience. The firm previously raised a $35 million fund in 2022 that focused on wildfire technology. That fund backed companies including Pano, which develops AI-powered fire detection cameras, Raine, which builds autonomous aircraft for firefighting, Burnbot, which creates brush-clearing robots, and Stand, an insurance firm that helps homeowners protect properties from fire.

The new fund broadens the mandate to include other natural disaster risks. Its first four investments are in The Lumber Manufactory, which builds timber mills for forest management, Drafted, which uses AI for home design, Voltaire, a Y Combinator-backed company that builds drones to inspect power lines, and Edge Technologies, which offers insurance products to hedge commodity price volatility.

Convective Capital founder Bill Clerico said the fund targets a market where $60 trillion of real estate faces high disaster risk and the United States spends a trillion dollars annually on disaster mitigation and recovery.

The new fund is backed primarily by institutions such as insurance companies and asset managers. The earlier fund was supported mainly by wealthy individuals, including Clerico, who co-founded WePay and sold it to JPMorgan for $300 million in 2017. Clerico said companies in the first fund have generated $100 million in combined revenue and are valued at $2 billion collectively.

He added that 79 percent of the portfolio companies advanced from seed to Series A, above typical industry rates. Clerico noted that AI tools are increasing productivity for early-stage teams and enabling new methods for fire detection and modeling.

He also said data center construction is increasing demand for energy and water infrastructure services supplied by portfolio companies.