Faura

Faura is a cutting-edge insurtech startup founded in 2023 by Valkyrie Holmes and Amanda Southworth, pioneering a revolutionary approach to natural disaster risk assessment and property resilience analysis in the insurance industry. Based in Napa, California, Faura emerged from an unexpected connection between its two founders on the r/wildfires subreddit, where their shared passion for addressing climate-driven wildfire risks sparked the vision for a company that could fundamentally transform how insurers evaluate and underwrite catastrophic climate risk. The company specializes in evaluating the survivability of individual structures against five major natural catastrophe perils: wildfire, hurricane, hail, flood, and earthquake.

What distinguishes Faura from traditional climate risk models is its focus on property-specific resilience characteristics rather than simply modeling peril probability. The company's proprietary platform analyzes structural integrity, building materials, geographic risk factors, and documented mitigation activities to generate detailed survivability scores for individual properties. This granular, structure-level analysis enables insurers to make more informed underwriting decisions, identify properties that can withstand disasters despite being in high-risk zones, and price policies more accurately. Faura's techniques have demonstrated 90-95% accuracy in predicting wildfire outcomes in major events including the Mountain, Palisades, and Eaton fires.

Since its founding, Faura has experienced remarkable growth, conducting over 10,000 property assessments nationwide and achieving a 100% conversion rate from pilot programs to paid customers. In 2024, the company added 14 new customers including major insurance carriers, two MGAs, three agencies, and a consultancy. The number of monthly assessments has surged from around 100 to over 600 in the last quarter. With $4.43 million raised across pre-seed and seed funding rounds from investors including Harlem Capital, Building Ventures, MetaProp, and Dorm Room Fund, Faura is positioned for significant expansion in 2025. The company has also earned industry recognition, winning the State Farm Pitch Competition and Guidewire Insurpitch in 2024, and being named a 2024 InsurTech Vanguard.