Flooding is not only the most common natural disaster—it’s also the most costly, with economic losses soaring into the hundreds of billions every year. While the risk grows due to urbanization and climate change, insurance coverage remains low and risk modelling often lacks the precision needed to close the gap. That’s where 7Analytics comes in.
Founded in Bergen, Norway—the rainiest city in Europe—by Helge Jørgensen, Jonas Aas Torland, Rolf Monsen, and Werner Svellingen, the team applies deep expertise in geoscience and fluid flow modelling to deliver the most detailed flood risk insights available. In this conversation, the founders share how their journey from exploration geologists to climate tech entrepreneurs is shaping a new standard for resilience.
1. Tell us a bit about yourself and your co-founders, and how you came across the idea for 7Analytics.
We are four co-founders that originally started working together more than 10 years ago as exploration geologists in a highly innovative Oil&Gas company. That’s where the original idea began to take shape: applying our deep expertise in fluid flow modelling and dataprocessing across complex terrains to surface water and flooding. Five years later we were all back in Bergen, Norway, the rainiest city in Europe, and 7Analytics was born.
2. What problem or opportunity do you address, and for which customers?
Flooding is both a massive and growing problem along with other natural hazards. According to Aon, the direct economic loss from flooding last year was $84bn, around 30% higher than the annual median since 2000. If you also include indirect effects like economic disruption, aUS Senate report estimates the annual loss in the United States alone upwards of $496 bn. It is in sum the single biggest natural peril.
The trend is driven by a combination of rebuild cost inflation, increasing urbanization and climate change. We are paving over permeable ground and continue building in high-risk areas while rainfall events are becoming both more intense and unpredictable.
Flood losses also remain underinsured. This century, only about 15 percent of economic losses have been insured, which is half the level of natural perils in general. Though there are several reasons for this, the complexity involved in modelling flood risk has clearly made the insurance industry hesitant to provide affordable cover at least in certain areas.
From our underlying data and models, we aim to offer relevant solutions and insights for as broad a client spectrum as possible. The insurance industry is a key group, but we also work with asset owners, banks and public authorities.
3. What is your solution, who do you compete with, and what is your USP?
While 7Analytics is not the first company to develop flood models, our mission is to produce the highest resolution and most detailed geospatial understanding of how the water flows and interacts with the physical world, delivering insights at the individual building level.
One aspect of this is that we model with 1x1m resolution, which as far as we know is the most granular available. To exemplify why that is important, with 1m resolution the associated vertical uncertainty is around 20cm, while at 10m resolution it balloons to more than 2m. As flood depths at various precipitation levels function as a key input in estimating property damage, it goes without saying that 1m resolution provides a significant advantage in loss modelling.
A lot of our development work since the beginning has been focused on merging and processing various input data in a resource effective way to ensure scalability across geographies and the ability to dynamically update our models with ongoing changes in the built environment.
We have also been fortunate to have access to real and precise insurance claims. We combine these with our geospatial maps and machine learning to identify the features and parameters that drive the inherent susceptibility of pluvial flooding at the building-level independent of historical rainfall frequency. This is as far as we know a unique approach and of growing importance as weather patterns are shifting. My tagline in meetings is “never be surprised by rainfall losses in your portfolio again”.
The combination of our approach and data granularity is particularly well suited to assess and monitor flood risk in urban areas, which is both the biggest current knowledge gap and fastest growing cause of loss.
Other catastrophe model vendors in the market offering flood risk data tend to be more focused on large aggregations and the total loss accumulation of multiple perils. Thus, working with lower resolution data and mainly capturing riverine flood risk, assigning zero quantified risk to a large portion of buildings. This is where we can come in as a complementary layer filling in the gaps and broadening out the expected loss distribution.
We see time and again that there can be huge shifts in the risk between two properties just across the street where more coarse models struggle to differentiate.
Additionally, we have developed our models to integrate with weather forecasts, meaning we also provide an Early Warning System (EWS) in partnership with StormGeo predicting all types of flooding at the same level of site-specific granularity several days ahead. This system has been in use by asset owners in the US throughout the last two hurricane seasons where we have gotten “live-fire” validation of its precision.
That we have based our risk database, hazard maps and forecasting system on the same underlying modelling framework is also an advantage. So far, we have mainly marketed the EWS towards asset owners for use in loss mitigation and rapid response. Integrating it closerinto our insurance offering has exciting potential applications for parametric and claims management which we are currently exploring.
4. What are the industry trends or market shifts to watch in your space, and can you share any supporting numbers or research reports
There is a much bigger focus on flooding and flood insurance from various stakeholders now compared to when we initially started out, which is natural after all the events and media attention over the last couple of years.
In some countries, like Italy, there are regulatory efforts ongoing to increase the natural hazard insurance coverage. We also find the insurance industry in general proactively wants toimprove its ability to provide coverage, while heading for the exit is only considered a measure of last resort. To be able to act on these good intentions they need precise risk data to price with confidence.
There is also business opportunity embedded in the trend. Flood insurance in the US, as a clear example, is currently around a $5 bn premium market. Less than 10% of households have coverage even though close to every county has experienced flooding at some point. A Federal Reserve paper from last year estimated the theoretical insurance need across all properties at more than $40 bn.
The public flood insurance scheme, NFIP, which has dominated the market historically but also sustained heavy losses is currently in the process of increasing their policy pricing to risk reflective levels. That is in my opinion a huge opportunity for the private flood insurance space.
Higher coverage uptake due to more focus and the improved portfolio diversification that entails in combination with better risk data will allow insurers to price lower in a virtuous circle. We look forward to doing our part in supporting the industry and market as it grows.
5. What is your company’s current stage and traction?
We raised a seed round of €4m last year welcoming new investors from the US, Denmark and Australia in addition to continued support from existing investors.
On the insurance side we currently work with around 30 percent of the Norwegian property market including Fremtind, the largest residential insurer, who was also our original collaboration partner in the development phase.
Our insurance offering was launched commercially outside of Norway last spring and we have onboarded IAG, the largest insurance group in Australia, as both an investor and partner since then. We are also currently in pilots with insurers across the US, Australia, UK, Nordics and various European countries including Germany.
The Early Warning System is in use by hospitals, utilities, retailers and Oil&Gas companies across the US.
6. Your plans for the next 6-18 months, and how can our network help?
The key word for us in the coming period is scaling. We have developed our modelling framework over the past 5 years and validated our value proposition with active users across both the risk analytics and event forecasting tracks.
Now, our main priority is to mature ongoing pilots and grow our client and partnership base in already active geographies as well as launch into new ones with our offering.
If you share our vision of building climate resilience through actionable risk data and believe we can support your operations or collaborate in other ways, don’t hesitate to reach out!
7. What’s on your bookshelf or podcast app? Your favorite place for a coffee or a drink?
On my bookshelf right now are books two and three of The Stormlight Archive – though I have to ration them carefully as they’re dangerously addictive! For podcasts, I tend to split my time between football and startup content, with the InsTech and FNO:InsureTech podcasts my current favorites to be updated on our industry and learn from other great founders.
And as for coffee, there’s nothing better than enjoying a cup in one of Bergen’s small waterfront cafés, where you can watch the rain and sea meet – a fitting reminder of why we do what we do.
From high-resolution flood maps to predictive early warning systems, 7Analytics is redefining how industries understand and respond to climate risks. Their work highlights not only the urgency of preparing for more extreme weather, but also the opportunities that arise when science, data, and innovation come together. As they scale their solutions globally, one message stands out: with better insights, we can build a more resilient future—rain or shine.
A special thank you to Sinah Truffat for her support in making this interview possible, and to the founders Helge Jørgensen, Jonas Aas Torland, Rolf Monsen, and Werner Svellingen for sharing their vision.