Climate adaptation: meet the founders building tech to tackle extreme weather

Climate adaptation can mean many things, from predicting future climate disasters, to finding more stable supplies of essential resources like water, safeguarding crops against climate upheaval, and greening cities to make them cooler.

Some solutions are high-tech, satellite thermal imaging cameras and AI algorithms and the like, while others rely on age-old observations and methods. The recognition that climate change is already with us is what they have in common.

With all this in mind, Impact Loop have picked out five startups (well, four startups and one recent acquisition) to illustrate the myriad ways founders are trying to help humanity adapt to the new normal.

The recognition that climate change is already with us is what they have in common

OroraTech – minimising wildfires

Founders: Thomas Grübler, Florian Mauracher, Rupert Amann and Björn Stoffers

CEO: Martin Langer

Founded: 2018

Funding: €25m Series B in 2024

One of the most noticeable – not to mention horrifying – effects of climate change is the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires around the world. Recently, it’s been reported that climate change has extended the fire seasons in both Australia and California to such an extent that the firefighting services of each will no longer be able to assist each other as they have in the past.

It's impossible to prevent all wildfires – in fact forest regeneration relies on them continuing – but it is becoming more possible to use data to limit their immense damage to human life and the environment.

It is becoming more possible to use data to limit their immense damage

Enter OroraTech, a Munich-based startup that uses thermal-imaging cameras mounted to satellites, paired with extensive data crunching on the ground, to give firefighters the information they need to predict where wildfires are likely to spread, and even where they might arise.

The tech is "trying to know the unknowable," company spokesperson Zach Ricklefs told us, but they hope their data can help at least prepare for what’s coming. OroraTech offers their services to governments, forest authorities, insurers and others, all around the world.

7Analytics – flood and landslide prediction

Founders: Jonas Aas Torland and Helge Jørgensen

CEO: Helge Jørgensen

Founded: 2020

Funding: €4m seed round in 2024

Just as visually arresting as wildfires is the flooding seen ever more frequently around the world. 7Analytics does for the latter what OroraTech does for the former. Using AI to crunch such data as historical weather patterns and geological analysis, the Bergen-based startup offers tools for authorities, insurers, urban planners and landholders to better predict and prepare for flash flooding and landslides.

This adaptation solution is more than just an alert-system, however. With the data they provide, 7Analytics also hopes to give architects and urban planners the tools they need in the future to design cities and urban centres that can better withstand flooding and precipitation, from short-term flood barriers to more sophisticated stormwater systems.

This is particularly salient as higher global temperatures mean more moisture in the air. “That’s a lot of energy that's just waiting to pour down on us, so you get more heavy rains in a very short period of time,” Svein Ove Langeland with Momentum Partners, one of 7Analytics’ investors, told Impact Loop.

“Most of our cities in Western and developing countries aren't really set up to handle that much rainfall in that short period of time.”

Roofscapes – cooling buildings

Founders: Tim Cousin, Olivier Faber and Eytan Levi

Founded: 2020

Funding: €68k 'Innovation & Resilience' grant from Paris Mayor's office

A lot of the sharpest effects of climate change are so far seen in the Global South. One real exception to this, however, is the increasing heatwaves seen across Europe’s capitals. Each year, thousands die from the severe heat seen in Southern Europe in particular.

Cities are so vulnerable because of their concentration of buildings, and crucially, the lack of vegetation and trees which offset heat by providing shade and through the process of evaporative cooling known as transpiration. So of course, the idea of re-introducing vegetation to make cities literally more green has been around a while.

Cities are so vulnerable because of their concentration of buildings, and crucially, the lack of vegetation and trees

In 2024 the startup Roofscapes completed a pilot project in Paris – where a preponderance of zinc roofing sees apartment building temperatures soar in Summer. By installing vegetation palettes across the roofs of a former town hall building, Roofscapes reported a double-digit reduction in the outside and inside temperatures. Very promising, both in its results, and the simple application of the solution.

Ocean Oasis – safer drinking water

Founders: Thomas B. Johannessen, Kristine Bangstad Fredriksen and Sebastian Feimblatt

CEO: Kristine Bangstad Fredriksen

Founded: 2020

Funding: Undisclosed seed round, €6m EU grant in 2024

Just as important as mitigating the impact of climate disasters is ensuring that we all have secure access to the resources of life. The first of those resources is water. There are already billions of people without access to safe drinking water, and climate change will mean even more scarcity, both for drinking and for crop irrigation and other vital uses.

Oslo-based Ocean Oasis has a radical solution to provide the world with fresh water – zero-emission desalination of seawater. Their offshore desalination system is currently being deployed in the waters off the coast of Gran Canaria, with the aim being to eventually provide fresh water for 15,000 people.

One of Ocean Oasis’ investors is Unconventional Ventures, whose general partner Thea Messel gave Impact Loop her take on such efforts. “We are at a tipping point where we know we need to prepare for the inevitable changes that climate change will bring,” Messel said. “There is a clear need to invest in food and water security solutions."

Sencrop – food security

Founders: Martin Ducroquet and Michaël Bruniaux

Founded: 2016

Funding: Acquired by the ISAGRI Group in 2025

With this one we’re cheating a little, as Sencrop has recently been acquired by agritech giant Isagri. We’re still including their solution, however, for both its adaptation-specific model and global scalability.

The Lille-based French company has spent the better part of the last decade developing hardware and software solutions for farmers to help them sow and maintain their crops more efficiently, with less resource-usage and waste. They have tens of thousands of sensors deployed on farms across Europe, South Africa and the Tropics, all feeding local data into the app, that can be used to better safeguard crop yields and therefore food security.

It's essentially a modern take on age-old agricultural practices, co-founder Martin Ducroquet told Impact Loop. Farmers have always used the data and knowledge available to them to make decisions. But the fact is that more precise data such as offered by Sencrop is not just a nice byproduct of the technological age, but rather a necessity in the new normal of climate change.

“With climate change, the window of intervention is smaller than before,” said Ducroquet. “There is more variability.”