Komunidad raises US$1 million in seed funding to expand its environmental intelligence services in Asia

The investment in Komunidad from global investors comes as climate change patterns are likely to have a significant impact on developing and emerging economies in Asia

MANILA, Philippines – Philippine startup Komunidad, which offers environmental intelligence services, has raised US$1 million in seed funding, paving the way for the company’s further expansion in the country and the rest of Asia.

The investment – led by Wavemaker Partners and participated in by ADB Ventures, the Asian Development Bank’s new venture arm – comes as climate change patterns are likely to have a significant impact on developing and emerging economies in Asia.

Komunidad’s proprietary platform is designed to help environment-critical industries to make informed decisions when it comes to safety, operational efficiency, business continuity, and natural disaster preparedness. It allows relevant weather and environmental data to be quickly organized into visualizations, reports, and alerts to build the most suitable decision-making tools to support their operations.

Founded in 2019 by Felix Ayque, Komunidad started from a tropical cyclone email service, which later evolved into a web-based environmental intelligence platform.

“The Philippines, because of its geographic circumstances, is highly prone to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tropical cyclones, and floods, making it one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world,” Ayque said. “I grew up in the southern part of the Philippines, where all these events happen regularly – on an annual basis. I have seen their impact on people’s lives and business. On top of that, the world around us is changing. Climate change is widespread, rapid, and intensifying, according to the latest studies. It will definitely impact the way we live, work, and do business in the future and many countries in Asia will be most affected.”

While many companies offer high-quality weather and environmental data services, Komunidad believes that there is still a big gap in making these useful to many industries, especially in Asia, where the needs and risk parameters are unique per country. Komunidad aims to bridge that gap through its proprietary platform that enables users to choose relevant data and rapidly build a tailor-made solution.

“Asia, specifically Southeast Asia, will potentially face more severe climate change effects than other parts of the world. We think Komunidad is in a unique position to help mitigate the hazards for both public and private organizations in the region,” said Paul Santos, Managing Partner of Wavemaker Partners in Southeast Asia. “We’re excited about the company’s tremendous growth potential as it tackles the massive but often ignored impact of environmental intelligence.”

“Our expansion in Asia will focus on the Philippines, India, and other emerging and developing countries where the risk index is higher. The investment will be used to grow our collection of weather and environmental intelligence datasets, and to develop a more robust and intelligent platform to be released by Q1 2022,” Felix said.

Prior to closing the seed round, Komunidad won contracts with local governments and companies in the utilities/energy, agriculture, mining, and business process outsourcing industries. Most recently, Komunidad won a contract in a state in India for its impact-based weather monitoring and forecasting system.