RisQ

risQ is a climate risk analytics firm that quantifies the financial impact of climate change, primarily for the U.S. municipal bond market. The company was founded in 2016 by Evan Kodra, a 2014 Northeastern doctoral graduate, along with engineering professor Auroop Ganguly and alumnus Colin Sullivan. Their backgrounds in sustainability and data science at Northeastern University's SDS Lab provided the foundation for the venture, which was established to address the gap in understanding how climate events affect financial assets.

The company spun out of Northeastern University's Sustainability and Data Sciences Lab and was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, receiving a total of $1.65 million through the Small Business Innovation Research program. risQ initially explored the insurance market before pivoting to focus on the municipal debt sector, where it identified a significant need for climate risk data. A key milestone was a partnership with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in January 2020, which led to the launch of the ICE Climate Risk platform. This collaboration culminated in ICE acquiring risQ in December 2021.

risQ's business model centers on providing data analytics as a service to financial institutions, investors, and municipalities. It generates revenue by licensing its proprietary data and analytics platform, which integrates climate science, catastrophe modeling, and geospatial machine learning. This platform analyzes risks such as wildfires, floods, hurricanes, and heat stress, and translates them into quantifiable financial metrics. Its core product, the risQ Score, is a 0-5 metric that allows investors to compare the climate risk of different municipal bonds and securities, where an increase in one integer represents a doubling of risk. The firm also developed Social Impact Scores to help users quantify the social effects of their investments. By providing detailed analytics on how climate events can impact tax revenues, property values, and economic health, risQ enables stakeholders in the $4 trillion municipal debt market to make more informed investment and risk management decisions.

Keywords: climate risk analytics, municipal bonds, financial risk modeling, geospatial analytics, climate data, sustainable finance, ESG data, catastrophe modeling, municipal debt, climate adaptation, Intercontinental Exchange, fixed income analytics, social impact scores, investment decision tools, environmental risk, portfolio management, climate fintech, Northeastern University spinout, National Science Foundation, wildfire risk, flood risk