Reinsurance, Climate + Kindergarten Ventures (with Nat Manning)

David Rosenthal (0:00)

Hello, Acquired LP Show listeners.

This episode was so fun to sit down with my, literally my kindergarten friend, Nat Manning, talk about his company, Kettle, and our friendship and his and my partnership together in Kindergarten Ventures, the fund that we run on Angelus together. So great, great conversation. Nat and I were actually in person together at my house here in San Francisco. He was visiting and Ben was over Zoom. It was so fun.

Ben Gilbert (0:36)

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David Rosenthal (0:53)

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Ben Gilbert (1:14)

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David Rosenthal (1:37)

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Ben Gilbert (2:01)

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David Rosenthal (2:19)

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Ben Gilbert (2:34)

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David Rosenthal (2:58)

And with that, on to our conversation with Nat Manning.

Ben Gilbert (3:03)

Hello, Acquired LPs.

Nat Manning is with us today. Hello, Nat.

Nat Manning (3:07)

Thanks for having me, guys.

David Rosenthal (3:08)

This is my secret to success. I just have better than me better haves.

Literally everything in my life.

Ben Gilbert (3:14)

This is certainly true in your marriage.

David Rosenthal (3:17)

Everybody can agree on that. Everybody can agree on that.

Later in the episode, we're going to talk a lot more about our history, Kindergarten Ventures.

I think I've said on the show, it's called Kindergarten, our fund that we do together on AngelList Anatomy because we went to Kindergarten together. Literally. Yeah. Firstly, the actual reason you're on the show is because you are co-founder of Kettle, which we have also talked about a lot on Acquired. It's insurance, it's fintech, it's the start.

Ben Gilbert (3:48)

Climate.

David Rosenthal (3:49)

Climate. It's all of the intersection of all the interesting things happening right now. So we thought now would be great time to give listeners a primer from you.

What is Kettle?

Nat Manning (3:59)

Thanks for having me, guys.

It's a blast to be here.

So what is Kettle? Kettle is a reinsurance company that uses the most advanced technology, particularly using machine learning, AI, to better understand the risks that are being exacerbated by climate change. So for instance, one of the first things we look at is fire in California, or in time, things like hurricanes and or wind and flood and convective storms. And all these things are being exacerbated. There's been a 3X increase in billion dollar catastrophes in the US in the last 10 years. And reinsurance is the business of understanding that risk, underwriting it. And really, I think about it as kind of like the second parachute, the safety net below the safety net.