Making The Weather Your Bitch
Whether it’s farmers in California standing to lose upwards of $1 billion, or Wall Streeters celebrating like school girls over not having to shroud their much-loved blue shirt/black pants ensembles in winter coats, weather, as previously stated (and stated again) matters. Still not convinced? Try this one on for size: Forbes has made a video called Wall Street's Weathermen: How U.S. markets hedge the risk posed by climate change. As everyone knows, this litmus test (Has Forbes Produced A Video On The Subject?) is as good as any. But simply “knowing” that weather matters doesn’t really do much for you, does it? How about if it meant you could turn a profit? From TechCrunch:
San Francisco based WeatherBill, the service which lets you bet on the weather (it can also be used for insurance), took down their landing page and launched today.
The company is not disclosing the size of their round of funding. However, it includes venture firms NEA and Index Ventures, as well as a number of well known individuals: del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter, Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom (through his Atomico fund) and Howard Morgan (idealab and First Round Capital), as well as others who declined to be named.
WeatherBill is perfect for small and medium sized businesses who’s businesses are affected by the weather. If a golf course wants to be paid $1,000 per rainy day, WeatherBill will create a policy on the fly for them.
WeatherBill Launches, Announces All Star Investors [TechCrunch]
