150 hottest insurtechs + a shiny new Sønr button

It’s 2024.
It’s going to be a beaut.
Just you wait.

Planning/Scouting

New year, new start. Whether you’re investing, partnering or acquiring, here’s the complete Forward50 study we ran in partnership with ITC last year.

Featuring 150 of the hottest insurtechs on this planet, it’s also got a breakdown of emerging trends across each region. A must for any strategy planning and/or scouting this year.

• Forward50 APAC
• Forward50 Europe
• Forward50 Americas

Get involved: 2024 roadmap

Our vision is for Sønr to become a critical component of every ambitious company’s ability to successfully innovate and grow. A bit wordy but you get it.

This year we’re setting up our Sønr Champions programme – a quarterly get-together of leaders from across our clients to foster collaboration, share best practices, and ensure our product evolves to meet the unique needs of the insurance industry.

If you’re a client and not yet part of this, do get in touch.

And if you’re not a client and would like to get involved, let me know. We’re growing fast and want to make sure we’re building a business that attracts new customers too.

More than just a platform: 24/7 research support

It’s something our clients love.
And it’s a huge differentiator.
Think of it as an extension of your team. A really capable, highly-experienced, expert extension 🙂

Whether you’re after deeper insight on a particular company or some help cutting through the noise, we have a team of researchers and analysts available on tap. Better still, their time is included in the subscription cost.

“Remember we made an arrangement when you went away”

Ten points if you name the musical.

There’s been talk of US investors pulling back, even out, of the European market. Equally a number of our US clients are just starting their European scouting 🤷

Either way, great to see Battery Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz backing London’s Hyperexponential.

I’m sure most of you reading this are familiar with Hyperexponential – they provide modelling software for insurance pricing. Earlier in the week they announced their $73m Series B with the 2024 plan to double its workforce to over 200 and open a New York office.

And connecting the US <> UK dots a little further, Lloyd’s Lab is taking applicants for Cohort 12. It’s the first time the Lab is pushing a dedicated theme for the Americas. The three themes this time around are:

1. New products
2. Data, models and processes
3. Building resilience in an ever-changing American landscape

And whilst talking London markets, well kind of, Placing Platform Limited (PPL) and Artificial Labs have entered into a multi-year partnership agreement. The plan is to work together to accelerate the delivery of a fully integrated digital trading experience.

In their press release David King, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Artificial, said:
“The integration of Artificial’s Contract Builder component with PPL’s platform is a crucial step in enabling brokers to effortlessly generate Blueprint 2-compliant digital contracts. This supports Artificial’s vision of a data-driven, digital London Market, offering an enhanced experience for insurers, brokers and their clients across the insurance lifecycle.”
Nice.

Health, life and accelerated growth

Sometimes a partnership leads to an investment.
Sometimes an investment leads to a partnership.
Sometimes they go hand-in-hand.

And that’s how it’s worked out for DigitalOwl and another Sønr client, RGA.

Real-time medical record summarisation and analysis startup DigitalOwl has raised $12m from RGA. The two companies also announced a strategic partnership which will see DigitalOwl’s tech integrated into RGA’s systems to speed up underwriting and claims decisions and management.

Won’t you look at that. Love it.

The investment comes off the back of a successful 2023 for the Israeli startup – they claim a ‘500% growth in the life insurance field last year’.

More client news and WTW has partnered with Lime Health to introduce the latter’s ‘Whole of Workforce’ health cover products to WTW’s clients.

Lime Health, part of Lime Global, aims to bridge the gap between low-cost health cash plans and full-scale PMI. It offers online doctor services, diagnostic and cancer benefits.

A little closer to home, hi.health has raised €6m in pre-Series A.

The Vienna-based startup, which simplifies the reimbursement experience for insurance customers, plans to expand across Europe and extend into pharmaceutical and medical software providers.

Finally, Sumitomo Life has announced plans to fully acquire Singlife – it currently owns 35%. Should the deal go through, the company will be valued at S$4.6 billion – making this one of the largest insurance deals in SE Asia. Huge stuff.

Ondo, Odie and Open Innovation

Across 2023, Ondo signed deals with Nationwide, Länsförsäkringar, and IAG, increasing its household reach from 500k to 5m.

And it kicks off 2024 by extending its partnership with Danish insurer LB Forsikring. Nice work team.

Five Sigma’s claims solution will augment Odie’s digital platform, connecting policyholders, vets, and the wider ecosystem. In turn this will streamline workflows and provide insights to optimise performance and access to vital pet care services.

Whilst talking partnerships – one that didn’t start with an O and so didn’t make the title, is Blink Parametric. Blink has partnered with Baloise to integrate its Flight Disruption and Delayed Luggage offerings into Baloise’s single-trip travel insurance policies.

Consortiums, MGAs and specialty

A couple of super interesting ones on the specialty front.

Brit and the UK Specialty Lines division of RSA Insurance have teamed up to create BUILD – a Project Cargo Consortium. It will offer a guaranteed capacity of up to $285m for Project Cargo risks.

The two stated it will ‘ensure comprehensive global coverage, encompassing Delay in Start-up and Advanced Loss of Profits’, and can offer a lead or follow capacity.

Its targets include Renewables, Power, Waste to Energy, Infrastructure, Manufacturing, and Innovation. Richard Landers (Senior Cargo Underwriter, RSA) and Penny Robinson (Cargo Class Underwriter, Brit) lead the consortium.

And new UK-based MGA Ai Marine, which was only founded in December, has announced an investment of £1.6m from BP Marsh (through equity and a loan facility), for a 30% stake in the business. Speedy work team BP Marsh.

The MGA, which will specialise in marine hull insurance, will focus on the MENA and APAC regions.

The global pursuit for growth

A couple more client announcements which I loved this week.

Tokio Marine Future Fund has invested into Korr, an insurance startup offering a cloud-based operating system for claims processing and policy administration.

In total the NYC-based Korr raised a $3.2m Seed round.

Jaime Anchústegui, CEO International at Generali, said: “This acquisition is fully aligned with our Group strategy, which aims at strengthening our footprint in key Asian markets. Becoming the sole owner of GCI will enable us to further expand our offering, our reach, and our distribution network.

It’s honestly such a pleasure to work with companies like Tokio Marine and Generali.

And hey, if you’re not working us yet, or would like more information on how we help our clients source and connect with new opportunities, please do get in touch.

Meeting up in 2024

Whilst I love the readership of SøNws (60k+ people now) nothing beats meeting up in person.

One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get to more events in 2024. Something I was particularly bad at last year.

Below is the Sønr hit list. The plan is to get to most of these…

• ITC Japan – [12 March, Tokyo]
• Digital Technologies Conference 2024 – [19-20 March, Milan]
• ITI Europe – [20-21 March, London]
• InsurTechNY 2024 Spring Conference – [20-21 March, NYC]
• InsurTech Hartford Symposium – [17-18 April, Connecticut]
• Insurance Innovators – [22-23 April, Nashville]
• The Future of Insurance USA – [15-16 May, Chicago]
• ITC Asia – [4-6 June, Singapore]
• ITI US – [5-6 June, NYC]
• ITC DIA – [12-13 June, Amsterdam]
• DIGIN by Digital Insurance – [27-28 June, Florida]
• ITC Vegas – [15-17 October, Vegas]
• Insurance Innovators: Summit – [15-16 November, London]
• Slush 2024 – [20-21 November, Helsinki]

Let me know if you’ll be there. And let me know if I’m missing any (particularly in Japan and North America where I plan to spend a fair bit of time this year).

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If we haven’t already connected, please do reach out and say hello. I’m always keen to build new relationships and explore ways we could add value to the industry.

Have a great weekend.

Matt

Sønr is the world-leading market intelligence platform created specifically for the insurance sector. It provides you with the knowledge and tools to stay relevant, compete and plan for the future.

Try out a 14-day trial of Sønr to access intelligence on market trends, competitor playbooks and disruptive tech companies globally. Plus collaboration tools to help you track and manage innovation activity across your organisation.

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