Demex adds Ventus co-founder Stuart Mercer to Advisory Board

The Demex Group, a climate risk focused insurtech that aims to deliver climate-resilience through financial risk solutions on a global scale, has added reinsurance and ILS expertise to its Advisory Board with ex-Ventus co-founder Stuart Mercer.

The Demex Group launched recently after securing $4.2 million of seed funding from leading financial services, fintech and insurtech focused venture investment groups, Anthemis and IA Capital.

The company also has a relationship with specialist insurance-linked securities (ILS) investment manager Nephila Capital to supply specific weather risk capacity to underpin products it creates, while global reinsurance firm Munich Re is also aligned to provide additional risk capacity and also operational support.

As it builds out its product offering at the intersection of banking and insurance, The Demex Group is adding expertise in an advisory capacity to help it as it develops financial solutions to mitigate weather risks and help businesses seize climate-linked opportunities.

Stuart Mercer joins the Demex Advisory Board, to provide primarily advise on insurance, reinsurance, and weather risk.

Mercer is well known in the reinsurance and insurance-linked securities (ILS) communities, having co-founded Ventus Risk Management, a company focused on sourcing and underwriting property catastrophe and broader coastal property risks for a diverse range of capital providers, including insurance-linked securities (ILS) investors.

Mercer was previously a co-founder and former Chief Risk Officer of reinsurance firm Validus Re and for a time the CEO of its ILS fund operation AlphaCat Managers.

“I have known Ed for many years and have always enjoyed his innovative approach to the market. I look forward to supporting Ed and his team as they build the market leading climate risk management company,” Mercer explained.

Demex has also added Bruce Macdonald as an advisor on commodities, risk, and technology. He spent 38 years at Royal Bank of Canada, most recently as the head of the Commodities and Discretionary Capital Group for RBC Capital Markets.

MacDonald commented, “I am excited to be part of bringing an innovative and practical approach to managing the ever-increasing effects of weather to the boardroom.”

Demex Founder and CEO Ed Byrns said, “I’m delighted to have both Stuart and Bruce as part of the Demex team. They bring a wealth of experience in building, growing, and nurturing risk transfer businesses across many financial institutions.”

Demex is creating climate resilience risk transfer products backed by data and technology, with clients expected to include municipalities as well as enterprise customers.

Demex looks to gain a far more granular understanding of a clients operations and exposures, to enable it to construct extremely sensitised and responsive parametric risk transfer solutions, that can be structured as weather derivatives, insurance and reinsurance, or other capital markets hedging solutions.