Insurance & Insurtech Investment News – July 2022

For the first time in years, overall insurtech funding has slowed somewhat – but that hasn’t stopped early and medium stafe deals reaching dizzying new heights! So, here’s another instalment of where the money’s gone, who’s been spending it, and who’s got big plans to execute. Europe dominates the headlines with some gargantuan numbers this time around, but important moves have been made around the globe as per usual.

Global Headlines

Europe

• Wefox secures new cash injection adding €1.5 billion to its value
• YuLife expanding further, picking up $120 million in latest raise
• Konsileo secures Series A round to improve proprietary broking platform
• ELEMENT’s latest round brings its total investment to €88 million amid surging sales
• Wallife gets €12 million to help protect people at risk from technological innovation
• AI-powered insurtech BirdsEyeView closes seed funding
• Paris-based Orus doubles down on plans to reinvent SME insurance with €5 million 
• Insurtech Gateway gets new investment to support new generation of founders
• Calingo nets CHF 1.5 million to help revolutionise distribution

North America 

• Noldor gets backing from D.E. Shaw to help out MGAs
• Zesty.ai can capitalise on record growth with $33 million raise
• Allianz X leads $250 million investment in cyber start-up Coaltion

Asia Pacific

• Indonesia’s membership-based insurtech Rey Assurance announces $4.2 million seed funding
• Antler Australia and Betterlabs lead round for Upcover 

Middle East & Africa 

• FSD Africa pumps money into Catalyst Fund to breathe further life into African start-up market
• Ctrl, a platform connecting consumers, brokers and insurers gets $2.3 million to help scale operations

Europe

Wefox secures new cash injection adding €1.5 billion to its value

Wefox is surging ahead in typical trailblazing fashion, raising €398 million in its Series D round. Now with a valuation of over €4.48 billion, the Berlin-based insurtech is thriving while the growth of other tech businesses seems to have stalled for the time being. CEO Julian Teicke has spoken widely about the importance and beauty of Wefox’s indirect distribution business model which has contributed to its revenue doubling year on year – a mammoth achievement. Ibrahim Ajami, head of Mubadala ventures who led the raise, was quick to emphasise the impact of the model on allowing the business to “scale quickly and sustainably”.  

Source: eu-startups.com

 YuLife expanding further, picking up $120 million in latest raise 

YuLife, like Wefox, is bucking the tech trend at the moment, having secured $120 million in Series C funding. Now valued at around $800 million, YuLife is used by more than 500 businesses including Co-op, Del Monte, Jaguar Land Rover, Santander and CapitalOne. Again, drawing parallels with Wefox, YuLife’s gamified platform relies on (and thrives on) a B2B business model where the benefits are tangibly felt by the end user. Founder Sammy Rubin, a serial entrepreneur, has emphasised wellness as one of the benefits of the platform, laying the foundations for one of the most important emerging trends: reducing the chance of claims. In more good news for Sammy’s team, they have brought on a new investor in Dai Chi Life alongside existing investors such as insurtech stalwarts Anthemis. 

Source: TechCrunch

Konsileo secures Series A round to improve proprietary broking platform 

Committed Capital has led broking platform Konsileo’s Series A funding round of £4.7 million. London-based Konsileo, founded by John Warburton, has developed a system with built-in compliance checks – a dreamy widget for anyone involved in insurance – and allows brokers to focus on high-IQ tasks. Having doubled in size in 2021 and achieved chartered status in April of this year, Konsileo’s proprietary tech seems to be paying dividends so far with Committed Capital’s CEO, Steve Harris, very excited about what’s to come.

Source: Business Cloud

ELEMENT’s latest round brings its total investment to €88 million amid surging sales

Yet more news from Berlin as ELEMENT has raised €21.4 million in a round led by the Versorgungswerk Zahnärztekammer Berlin (VZB) after a 2021 that saw their sales skyrocket to €10.4 million. Prominent within several EU countries and with impressively low loss ratios, the future looks bright for Dr Christian Macht, the CEO, and VZB’s Ralf Wohltmann has emphasized his excitement not only in relation to their products but their ESG priorities as well.

Source: CrowdFund Insider

Wallife gets €12 million to help protect people at risk from technological innovation

Wallife, one of the more idiosyncratic insurtechs we’ve seen emerge has raised €12 million in a Series A. The start-up, which protects people from risks originating from improvements in genetics, biometrics and biohacking, has been shown support by United Ventures (founded by Massimiliano Magrini). The Italy-based insurtech has now raised Europe’s 7th highest series A round in the insurtech space and both Founder Fabio Sbianchi and CEO Maria Enrica Angelone plan to bed into the insurance market by launching products in the next few months – not one to take your eye off soon! 

Source: Silicon Canals 

AI-powered insurtech BirdsEyeView closes seed funding

SFC Capital and the European Space Agency have both thrown their support behind BirdsEyeView in a seed funding round. Using AI alongside satellite data, the insurtech structures insurance solutions for severe weather – incredibly pertinent given the Summer of extremes that Europe has suffered recently. CEO James Rendell says that their “RAPTOR” technology will be used to help insurers and policy holders get more accurate services while Ed Stevenson at SFC Capital hopes that companies like BirdsEyeView can be a catalyst for further innovation within the industry.  

Source: UKBAA

Paris-based Orus doubles down on plans to reinvent SME insurance with €5 million

Paris-based Orus, along with backing from VC funds, has also attracted investment from entrepreneurs Pierre-Olivier Desaulle, Christophe Triquet, Arthur Waller and Luko’s CEO Raphaël Vullierme. With €5 million in the bank they can now work on ramping up its commercial development, expanding the team and bringing out new products. One of the newer players in the market, having launched in May 2021, Côme Dartiguenave, Tom Le Bras, and Samuel Rossille have already built partnerships with Wakam and offer subscriptions to customers to optimize pricing in real time. 

Source: FinSMEs

Insurtech Gateway gets new investment to support new generation of founders 

Of course, it’s not only the insurtechs themselves that are in the market for investment. Insurtech Gateway, an incubator aimed at supporting insurtechs from pre-seed to Series A, have closed seed fund II. CEO Richard Chattock‘s plan hereafter is to support 20 teams over the next 4 years, closing the funding gap in early stage insurtech and to target founders approaching wider social issues such as sustainability. Mundi Ventures’s Javier Santiso, a veritable veteran in insurtech investment, is excited to see funding gaps being closed and we’d say now is a great time to get involved with market valuations starting to correct themselves a little bit. 

Source: https://www.reinsurancene.ws/insurtech-gateway-completes-first-close-on-seed-fund-ii/

Calingo nets CHF 1.5 million to help revolutionise distribution 

And last but not least in the plethora of European insurtech investments this month is distribution simplifier, Calingo. With a raise of CHF 1.5 milliion led by Venpace, Calingo CEO Anina Lutz believes that the answer to distribution issues lies in reimagining “the way that insurance is sold and bought, not only digitise existing processes and products”. Venpace’s Marnix Roes was particularly excited by its sales conversion rates – 50% is pretty good going even if you think you’re Jordan Belfort!  

North America 

Noldor gets backing from D.E. Shaw to help out MGAs 

Noldor, one of New York’s latest AI-powered data aggregators, although that’s possibly doing a disservice to CEO John Horneff and his team, has just been given a cash injection of $10 million from D.E. Shaw. Able to integrate seamlessly into any underwriting authority’s “regardless of their existing tech stack” (hence why the term “data aggregator” doesn’t do them justice) Noldor can give MGAs a boost with the cash as well as growing and becoming more adaptable itself. 

Source: Insurance Journal

Zesty.ai cap capitalise on record growth with $33 million raise 

Sticking with the artificial intelligence theme, Zesty.ai (Founder and CEO, Attila Toth) has closed $33 million in funding led by Centana Growth Partners. They will have been on many insurance professionals’ respective radars, having increased their revenue by over 200% last year – not bad going by a long chalk. We’ll be seeing more products in the property and climate risk areas as well as see an uptick in financial wellbeing for families and communities. 

Source: Insurance Edge

Allianz X leads $250 million investment in cyber start-up Coalition 

Not to be outdone by Wefox and YuLife, Coalition Inc managed a hefty raise of their own this month. Providing cyber protection for businesses, Allianz X (CEO, Dr. Nazim Cetin)has thrown its backing behind the San Francisco-based start-up having almost tripled its customer base since its last raise. They don’t just provide cover though. They have also made strong headway in helping customers prevent attacks, as well as offering the chance to find potential weaknesses in customers’ suppliers systems – innovative and altruistic. Joshua Motta, CEO and co-founder, says “may organisations remain unprotected in the face of rising digital threats” and that customers need reductions in “claims and losses…so they can continue to thrive in the digital economy.” 

Source: Silicon Angle 

Asia Pacific 

Indonesia’s membership-based insurtech Rey Assurance announces $4.2 million seed funding

Membership-based Rey Assurance, founded by Rey Tanatogono, has received $4.2 million from Genesia Ventures to tackle its goal of “eliminating paper-based processes”. Good for the planet; good for efficiency. Using a combination of big data analytics, AI and cashless claim processes with insurance policies that fit into subscriptions, they’re well-positioned to fit seamlessly into the healthcare industry within in the Asia-Pacific region as ecosystems take greater shape.  

Source: Mobi Health News

Antler Australia and Betterlabs lead round for Upcover

Sydney’s Upcover has involved a host of names in their latest funding round, with QBE, Antler Australia and Betterlabs all coming together to lump up. $2.7 million of the total is equity while $2 million is debt. Skye Theodorou and Anish Sinha founded Upcover as a way to let any online company distribute insurance – probably one of the hottest topics in the industry now. We’ll be seeing further customer acquisition and product development with the new cash as well as some team expansion. 

Source: Insurance Asia

Middle East & Africa 

FSD Africa pumps money into Catalyst Fund to breathe further life into African start-up market 

Some great (although non-insurtech specific news) in Africa as the tech accelerator Catalyst Fund has been given $3.5 million to back young start-ups and boost innovation efforts taking place in the continent. We’ll be seeing some support for underserved and climate-vulnerable communities with plans to help out 40 early stage African start-ups.

Source: Tech Economy

Ctrl, a platform connecting consumers, brokers and insurers, gets $2.3 million to help scale operations 

South Africa has a new insurtech player. Ctrl (Co-Founded by Pieter Venter) has been boosted with $2.3 million from Naspers Foundry (CEO, Phuti Mahanyele) to help scale its operations. With the intention of providing customers more control over their insurance whilst serving underserved demographics, Ctrl can now start leveraging Nasper’s extensive expertise within the start-up arena. 

Source: Disrupt Africa