Financial services firm Moody's has announced its acquisition of Cape Analytics, a geospatial AI startup, for an undisclosed sum. The deal, expected to close in Q1, will grant Moody's access to Cape's cutting-edge geospatial AI analytics technology for insurance underwriting.

The acquisition is a strategic move by Moody's to create a comprehensive property database capable of delivering address-specific risk insights for its insurance clients. According to Moody's CEO Rob Fauber, the integration of Cape's AI-powered property risk intelligence with Moody's risk models will provide customers with the most advanced property risk analytics available in the industry, enhancing insights and decision-making across the insurance lifecycle.

The acquisition comes at a time when the insurance industry is rapidly adopting AI and predictive analytics technologies. A 2024 survey by Conning, an insurance asset manager, found that 77% of insurers are in some stage of deploying AI, a 16-percentage-point increase from the previous year. The global AI in insurance market is projected to reach $79.86 billion by 2032.

Cape Analytics, founded in 2014 by Suat Gedikli and Ryan Kottenstette, enables insurance carriers to optimize their underwriting process by leveraging AI and geospatial imagery to evaluate properties without physical inspections. Through partnerships with geospatial image providers, Cape obtains satellite images, applies in-house algorithms to extract structured data, and transforms it into a structured property information database.

Nearly half of top property insurers and leading banks use Cape to inform their pricing and underwriting strategies. Prior to its exit, Cape raised $75 million in venture capital from investors including Formation 8, Pivot Investment Partners, and State Farm Ventures, and is cash-flow positive and profitable, according to Kottenstette.

Kottenstette believes that the combined entity can bring a much deeper set of solutions to carriers' underwriting workflows and enable a much more complete view of risk. Moody's customers can expect more in-depth, property-specific data, including building characteristics, average annual loss estimates, valuations, and more.

The acquisition marks Moody's first deal in 2025 and its 23rd acquisition to date, according to funding database Tracxn. Cape adds to Moody's other property-insurance-related mergers and acquisitions, including Praedicat, a provider of casualty insurance analytics, and RMS, a climate and natural disaster risk modeling firm.

The deal is expected to accelerate Cape's expansion into international markets and accelerate the adoption of its offerings within the mortgage ecosystem and other financial stakeholders. With Moody's global scale and footprint, Cape's solutions are poised to reach a broader audience, further solidifying Moody's position as a leader in the insurance underwriting space.