Google Ventures is reportedly joined backing the insurance programme for farmers by Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Atomico, Glynn Capital and Western Technology Investment.

Climate, a US-based weather insurer formerly known as WeatherBill until November last year, has raised $50m from a consortium including Google Ventures, the corporate venturing unit of online search engine Google.

Venture capital firm Founders Fund led Climate’s series C round, and was joined by peers Glynn Capital, Atomico, Khosla Ventures, New Enterprise Associates and Index Ventures and Western Technology Investment, a venture debt provider.

The company said it would hire more than 50 quantitative researchers, data scientists, and software engineers

In March last year, Google Ventures joined the consortium backing two of its former employees who had set up WeatherBill, in its $42m B round.

The other members of the B consortium included media-focused investment banks Allen & Company, First Round Capital and Code Advisors. WeatherBill’s A round raised $12.5m in November 2007 after previous angel funding.