Stable has come a long way since our first investment in 2018. Set up as an appointed representative inside of Lloyd’s, with no risk capacity and targeting farmers in a B2C model, Stable was far from achieving its current status as the world’s first commodity price insurer, operating globally, counting among its customers numerous household brand names protecting themselves against food, energy and packaging price risk.

Originally designed by CEO Richard Counsell to help farmers protect themselves from volatile commodity prices, Stable now offers cost rise and price fall protection to the multi-trillion-dollar market of organizations that have proven exposure to commodities not listed on a financial exchange. In agriculture as an example, only 10% of commodities are traded on a financial exchange, which leaves an ocean of opportunity for a company like Stable to redefine a new category of risk management.

To build these protection products, Stable’s data science team, led by Simon Wang, built the world’s largest parametric insurance platform with over 7000 indexes, (from publishers like the USDA) that can be priced using their sophisticated machine learning models. To scale globally, Stable is now a full-fledged collateralized insurer, backed by AAA-rated reinsurance partners.

Throughout the journey, Richard has distinguished himself as a CEO who can harmonize a team around a mission, a skill vital to attracting and retaining great talent. Hailing from Cargill, CME Group, Charles Schwab, Nasdaq, Rabobank, Nephila and more, this amazing group, alongside Simon’s Oxford-trained data scientists, represent the kind of powerhouse needed to solve vital problems.

Having invested in both deeptech companies and insurtech companies, I’ve observed a similar pattern of value-creation between the two. A pattern which goes a long way to explaining how a complex, capital-intensive business that initially grows more slowly than an enterprise SaaS startup can achieve a great outcome for a VC.

It’s not rocket science: both deeptech companies and insurtech companies forge their moats from value created pre-product and pre-launch. In other words, the foundational elements of these companies define the depth of their moats and their valuations rise exponentially alongside their revenues.

I’m thrilled to continue backing Stable as we grow our premium and welcome Greycroft and Notion on the journey!