Interview with Iggy Bassi, CEO and Founder of Cervest

Cervest - Iggy Bassi

We caught up with Iggy Bassi, CEO and Founder of Cervest, to talk all things from helping organisations predict climate security risks, to educating business leaders on climate consciousness…

Tell us about Cervest

I founded Cervest in 2016. I had formerly founded an agribusiness startup called Gadco, which pioneered an original idea to launch a vertically integrated agribusiness in West Africa with a focus on sustainable financial, social, and environmental returns. It was here I experienced first-hand the volatility of extreme climatic events and yet simply not knowing the best course of action for the long and short term.

So I asked myself: what if I could make better decisions about my farm based on MACRO climate problems? Then I asked myself “imagine if anyone with an interest on a piece of land, or the asset sat on top of it, be it a field of wheat, a building or a pipeline on it could make better decisions based on understanding the climate around them now and tomorrow?” I knew new tools were needed, so I set about finding out how this might be done. And, Cervest was born…

What does Cervest do?

At Cervest, we are building Earth Science AI to help all companies mitigate the short and long term effects of the climate crisis. With $970 billion worth of assets at risk worldwide, our technology enables organisations to predict climate security risks caused by extreme weather events through personalised, scientific insights.

The platform uses Earth Science AI to actively outline potential risks to the effects of climate change on a locational and organisational level.

How is Cervest different from other businesses?

Cervest is actively working to provide actionable insights to organisations about their climate risk at an asset-level. This mission is part of our wider goal to secure the future of our planet. No other company, nor country in Europe are doing this yet and the issue is clear. Our most recent independent research suggests three quarters of UK businesses feel threatened by the climate crisis, yet only one in ten have undertaken climate risk assessments and regard the issue as a priority. This further highlights why our goal for climate security is so important.

What can we hope to see from Cervest in the future?

A huge part of our mission is to educate business leaders, policy makers and the wider public on why we must act now to save our planet, and that it’s everyone’s duty to do so. Climate consciousness is growing, but this is still slow at an organisational level, and must be a priority in the continued fight against climate change. Within this, we want to ensure that our solutions are being offered to everyone in a position to make a difference. Growing our solutions into new markets is imperative to the long-term aim of wider climate consciousness.

From a business point of view, we are on the road to our Series A funding round and perhaps more than most, we are highly selective in who we work with. We have to work with investors who believe in our wider mission, as well as the responsibility that all organisations must take in the fight for sustainability and to continue to build our platform assets out to ensure that we are building our platform’s capabilities consistently.

We also look forward to the launch of our platform. This will combine our education and risk management tools to give organisations globally direct access to the information and data they need in order to make informed decisions on their climate risks.