IE 11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

After a Year of Natural Disasters, Investors Pump $20M into Mitigation Startup One Concern

The company has pulled in a comparatively large Series A round to further its machine learning-driven technology.

This year, hurricanes battered the Gulf Coast and flooded Houston. Then they tore up Puerto Rico and Florida. Wildfires razed buildings in Northern California, then in Southern California.

On Dec. 19, the disaster mitigation startup One Concern raised a $20 million Series A.

“As we look ahead to 2018, the world needs to shift from recovery to resilience,” One Concern Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Ahmad Wani wrote in a Medium post. “It is no longer enough to simply weather the storm — our communities need approaches to predict impact and protect their citizens from the rising tide of disasters and extreme weather events.”

That’s the thesis of One Concern: To help government better respond to disaster. The company applies machine learning algorithms to various kinds of data to figure out, for example, where first responders might be most urgently needed following an earthquake.

“Our AI-based technology will assign a unique, verified ‘digital fingerprint’ to every natural or manmade element from the smallest rock to complete structures to mega cities and eventually, the entire planet,” Wani wrote in the post. “One Concern will provide insights across the entire time horizon — whether it’s days before a flood, minutes after an earthquake, or forward-looking policy and planning.”

The $20 million total on the funding round is relatively large for a gov tech company — among the Series A rounds Government Technology has tracked this year, only Neighborly’s $25 million bundle in May surpassed it. Most of the other Series A rounds were closer to $10 million.

The funding round was led by New Enterprise Associates and brings the company’s total funding amount to $22.6 million.

Ben Miller is the associate editor of data and business for Government Technology. His reporting experience includes breaking news, business, community features and technical subjects. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in Sacramento, Calif.