Summer fun, fake stuff and a trip down memory lane.

Wimbledon’s on. People are packing suitcases for their holiday and I’m using my umbrella. Every. Single. Day. That’s right kids – it’s summertime in the UK.

And with that I thought I’d give your usual author – Matt C a break from SøNws, leaving you in the hands of moi – Matt F.

Now, full disclosure, I’ve got a pressing deadline today as it’s my daughter’s school sports day. And if there’s one thing I refuse to be late for it’s the ritual humiliation of coming last in an egg and spoon race, so let’s get going.

Keeping it real. Ish.

There’s been a tonne of interest in the topic of deep fakes of late. It’s a natural progression as interest in Gen AI comes with the realisation of more nefarious applications.

It’s also becoming more real for the public. We’ve all seen face swaps and manipulated videos – whether it’s your mates on insta or ‘slightly’ more alarming, Rishi Sunak presenting strategy or Gareth Southgate’s ‘real’ feelings about England’s performances.

With Google claiming that 27% of deepfake activity is aimed at influencing opinion, unsurprisingly governments are (frantically?) trying to legislate. In no small part driven by concerns over the implications for elections. Eek.

Linked to this, a few things on the topic which caught our eye:

• At the super early stage comes news of GetReal Labs. After 2 years of incubation, the startup has emerged from stealth mode, aiming to authenticate and detect malicious content and deep fakes.

• Next is Loti, a Seattle-based startup that helps people identify deep fake or illegitimate use of a person’s likeness. They’ve raised $5.1m for their solution, which is already being used by some big name media brands such as Meta and YouTube, but also talent agency giant, WME.
• A bit more mature is TrustID – a digital identity verification specialist. They’ve partnered with IDVerse to integrate their selfie biometrics that will enhance identity verification processes – good for regulatory compliance and customer onboarding alike. Hooray!
• Want to know more? Give us a call (obvs), but we also spotted an interesting summary of 3 recent reports on the topic by the team at Biometric update – check it out here.

Right, what else?

A blast from the past, a glimpse of the future(?)

This one felt both reassuringly familiar and not all at the same time.

It’s been a while since blockchain dropped out of the headlines – often amid challenges in validating business cases. But it always felt like there’s so much opportunity – surely there’s a use case out there? Isn’t there? Maybe?

In step Schroders Capital, who’ve been working with the team at Hannover Re on a proof of concept. They’ve been playing with tokenizing a portfolio of reinsurance contracts on a public blockchain.

So what have we learned? Well, not a huge amount from the release other than there’s still interest in it. And possibly with good reason. Even last year we featured blockchain-powered reinsurance company, Re in our Forward50 Americas report. They kicked off with a $14m Seed(!) round in 2022, and by Sept 2023 had achieved $40m in GWP. Makes you wonder…

Buy, Buy, Buy!

There’s been more news on the acquisition front over the past couple of weeks, both for insurers and insurtechs.

First up is Aviva, who have finalised their £249m acquisition of Probitas. Announced back in March, the deal’s finally been inked and will see them re-enter the Lloyd’s Market and, amongst other benefits, will fuel the growth of their Corporate and Specialty business. It also comes off the back of the £453m acquisition of AIG Life UK in April. Using all the commercial acumen I can muster, I suspect a strong correlation between spending £700m and an area of focus for the brand…

Sticking with Life insurance, but flipping to the insurtech side of the fence, comes Lumera. The Life and pensions startup is set to acquire ITM – a platform provider for underwriting, policy admin and claims management. Sounds like a great match.

From sector-specific to something with broader application comes insurance management platform provider, Novidea. They’ve acquired Docomotion – an automated document generation specialist enabling them to streamline a range of admin-heavy tasks. These include automated forms processing, design, management, and e-signatures. Again it sounds like a logical match up for both.

I do wonder about how this consolidation plays out. How do you maintain the differentiation as specialist providers extend their propositions – usually towards more holistic/end-to-end solutions? In the meantime there’s growth to be had and that challenge waits for another day I guess…

OK, that’s a wrap on that. Where next?

Summer fun for reinsurance, expat health plans and AI

Wow, what a title.
OK, not catchy but probably sums up the rare old mix of stories we’ve seen in the past fortnight. So rather than post-rationalise trends/themes too much, let’s just take a whistlestop tour.

Up first is Feather Insurance – a German outfit offering health insurance for expats. After an investment round in March 2023, they have just raised a further €6m. The cash will help accelerate their European expansion and enable (an increasingly mobile) expat community to take their cover with them from country to country.

Sticking with the health theme for a moment brings us to newly invested in Thrive AI Health. No details on the funding amount, but they’d like you to: ‘Think of Thrive AI as a mental health specialist, coach, advisor, or counsellor.’

Speaking of big, Hebbia has raised $130m to advance its AI platform. The platform focuses on optimising knowledge retrieval and powering AI agents to automate a whole host of tasks.

OK, so while the amount’s big, this is still a capital intensive space and also it’s focussed more on asset management, banking and law firms. BUT we see/hear so much interest in this type of solution AND the backers are Andreesson Horrowitz, who do know a thing or two about insurance, too… one to watch.

If you can’t beat them…

This week saw the news that Direct Line is going to offer products on Price Comparison Sites. While the product (and presumably pricing) will vary between their direct and PCW offerings, it’s an interesting move for the brand. As you might imagine this is part of a broader strategic review, which will see a host of changes to their focus, direction and offerings moving forward.

Fun(ish) fact time and a trip down memory lane. This story also triggered the memory of my dad (who used to be an advertising copywriter) coming home and excitedly telling me he was writing a TV ad! It was for a really exciting company called Direct Line.

The TV bit got my attention (he was in advertising I guess) but the whole ‘motor insurance’ and ‘phone with wheels’, bits started to lose me. And now look at me.

Right, that’s quite enough from me.

Thanks for reading and hopefully you’re winding down for a no doubt hard-earned break. But if you’re not or you’re furiously sprinting and need a hand then do give us a call and let’s see how we can help.

Wish me luck and hopefully I don’t end up as a meme on the parents WhatsApp group by tea time.

Matt (F)

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