WorldCover

WorldCover offers peer-to-peer investments that provide insurance to the underserved population. Leveraging technology, they connect a growing pool of investors seeking uncorrelated investment returns and impact from their capital with a huge and growing need for natural disaster insurance in the developing world.

Working with payment providers such as M-Pesa in Kenya and MTN Mobile Money in Ghana, WorldCover’s platform improves food and income security for smallholder farmers (those whose majority income comes from agriculture, farming on 10-20 acres of land, and earning around $500 to $5000) in developing countries. More than 70% of the 2.5 billion people living at the “base of the pyramid” throughout the world rely on agriculture for income and sustenance. Across the globe, smallholder farmers lose between $50 billion and $100 billion annually, often from natural disasters, but reportedly only 1% is insured from these accidents. As an example, in February 2019, the company made several payouts to farmers in Kenya as poor rainfall caused large amount of crop failure. Insurance, then, gives farmers a much needed sense of security in the event of a bad harvest.

For the moment, WorldCover only insures for events such as rainfall risk, but in the future it will look to include other weather events, such as tropical storms, in its insurance programs and platform data-analytics.

Currently, the startup operates in Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya, but, following its latest investment round, plans to expand its insurance offerings to more emerging market countries. To date, the company has served over 30,000 farmers across its Africa operations.