Jeff Williams: Discovering Kayrros’ geospatial data

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Jeff Williams, Managing Director for Kayrros USA, a technology-focused earth observation analytics company using unconventional geospatial data to bring new insights to the world’s biggest industries, including energy, commodity, and insurance.

Jeff has an incredible background in top 5 consultancy and M&A skills acquired in the energy sector. He uses these skills every day as he deep dives into the challenge created by methane on its impact on environmental change. 

During the course of our conversation, the pair discussed: 1) Kayrros as a series C scaleup focused on delivering solutions using unconventional geospatial data, 2) Kayrros - Off the shelf platform… with white box data analytics and scoring mechanisms to meet the need of today’s underwriters and regulators, and 3) Kayrros, the long-term geospatial partner for the insurance sector looking at solving wildfire and other connected catastrophic events.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• I got my start, like many Texans who want to get into technology, I started working for a large consulting company at the tip of the spear of energy tech. There I started working with large energy companies on data, and realized that all their data is spatial-related. They have assets all over the country, a sensor network that they weren’t leveraging, but more importantly, we were solving problems that were facing challenges of where to go and where not to go. I then started working with geospatial startups and realized there’s a robust amount of data out there that companies aren’t leveraging correctly. Six months ago, I started working at Kayrros where they’ve made real profits within the commodities and energy network. I fundamentally believe I can use the foundation that they built to work with the insurance industry and expand that foundation from the commodities and energy industry into insurance.
• We’ve built our insights to include asset monitoring for energy companies to detect climate data–tracking emissions. We’ve evolved from just an insights company to a climate data company. We see the cause of methane emissions, and now we want to start tracking the effects, which include wildfires and floods, and the industries that are really going to be affected by those issues are insurance and banking, which is why we’re really starting to focus on those as the following industries to work with.
• We track pre-risk, we have a risk score, and we’re using several different geospatial datasets – weather and landslide risk. We also track live monitoring, using satellite data to track live fires with rapid updates that we can give to our clients. Also, post-fire, we provide a damage assessment. What we’re focussing on is not one specific thing. We’re affecting several parts of the insurance company, including underwriting, customer communication, and claims.
• A challenge that we see with geospatial data is there has been insufficient refresh, really bad granularity, and a lack of transparency. The lack of transparency has really hurt the geospatial industry over the past couple of years. We don’t view ourselves as a black-box solution. Many of our potential customers just get handed a solution by other companies. What we want to do is work with our customers and provide a white box solution where they know exactly what all the data inputs are, and we do that with them. 

BEST MOMENTS

‘Companies like Kayrros really want to provide the right insights, and geospatial data really provides those insights for them.’
‘Kayrros got its name using satellite data to detect global crude tank levels. We used radar to detect how much crude oil was in tanks.’
‘Track climate data using satellites, drones, AI, and cell phone data.’
‘We’re fighting the geospatial fatigue in industries. We’re doing that by positioning Kayrros as a true geospatial partner, not a vendor.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Jeff Williams is the Managing Director of Sales & Business Development for Kayrros, where he is responsible for driving the Kayrros North American growth strategy.

Jeff's roots run deep in Houston, as demonstrated by his love for the Astros. Last but not least, his greatest accomplishment is his family, which includes his wife and two kids, Lucy and Jake Williams.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreydwilliams/ 

About Kayrros: 

Kayrros is a technology-focused earth observation analytics firm using unconventional data to bring new insights to the world’s biggest industries. By harnessing the power of satellite imagery, natural language processing, machine learning, and advanced mathematics, the team at Kayrros deliver actionable intelligence on virtually any asset across the globe, in near real-time, for better decision-making.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kayrros/ 

Website: https://www.kayrros.com/ 

ABOUT THE HOST

There are over 140,000 FinTech ventures out there, including FinTechs, InsurTechs, HealthTechs, and WealthTechs. And the number keeps on changing every month. One statistic remains the same: 25% of these ventures have received investment and support from the financing world. 75% of these businesses still seek financing support from institutional and corporate investors alongside value-creating commercial collaboration opportunities with Global Fortune 500. 

Through this podcast series, I would like to demystify the world of corporate venturing, including how corporations collaborate with growth ventures, how venture capitalists and corporate venture capitalists make investment and collaboration choices in ventures and give tech founders and entrepreneurs, the strategies, tactics, tools, and techniques to build, grow and scale their business by understanding how those with financing power think. So, listen in, share and comment as you see fit.

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