Amazon, ESG and insurance’s super apps

Hello.

Global happens fast. Seemingly.
From West to East.

Sønr is the official scouting partner for AtlanticX, Bermuda’s new startup accelerator programme.

And who better to have as a founding client but The Argus Group?

I spent some time with both these AtlanticX and Argus when over there and can’t rate them highly enough.

With applications now open, we’re seeking Seed and Series A startups to partner with Argus to address challenges across financial literacy, health, and wellness.

If you’re in this space, want to work with an exceptional team (paid pilots/PoCs) and like the idea of Bermuda (who doesn’t?) then check them out.

In Europe, congrats to all the Lloyd’s Lab Cohort 9 applicants who have made the cut to Pitch Day. For Sønr clients (and trialists!) you can find the shortlist here: https://sonr.global/lloydslabcohort9

And across to Asia, where we’re super proud to be partnering with ITC to bring a series of mini-events across the region – the ITC Asia Roadshow.

If you’d like to know more about Sønr and how we can scout and create new growth opportunities, get in touch.

This series is designed for insurance and insurtech leaders to connect, share knowledge, and keep pace with the industry throughout the year. Running from Aug 2022 to April 2023 we kick off in Jakarta in just a couple of weeks…

If you’d like to know more about Sønr and how we can scout and create new growth opportunities, get in touch. We work exclusively with insurers and reinsurers and would love to help.

Enough chat.
Let’s get into some market updates.

Amazon and your health data

Their health play has been a few years in the making.

This week they acquire One Medical for $3.9bn.

For some the deal will expand Amazon’s ability to collect the most intimate and personal of information (of their 767,000 members) so it can track, target, manipulate and exploit people in ever more intrusive ways.

For others it bumped the One Medical’s parent company’s share price by 69% 🤷

What does this mean for insurance? Plenty.

If you’d like to chat it through with one of our analysts, get in touch.

Health’s super apps and risks from healthtech innovation

We’re still seeing some decent money pouring into health.

US benefits company Gravie has raised $15m funding in addition to its earlier $75m Series E round, to expand to new markets amongst other things.

US/Israeli Diagnostics Robotic – a company founded in 2017 which uses AI for clinical prediction and triage, secured $45m.

And Italian startup Wallife secured a $12m Series A to focus on international growth.

Wallife is only a couple of years old and offers protection from new and developing risks which arise from the innovation within health and life, such as genetic manipulation, biohacking and implantable medical devices.

Interesting, right?

From a partnership perspective, great to see Dacadoo continuing their global activity, this time specialising with Colombian insurer Seguros Bolivar to launch a new ‘Super App’.

Bolivar Conmigo will allow users to manage their wellbeing across their body, mind and habits, providing an overall health score and personalised health coaching.

The app will also offer integrated mobility and home services, helping users better self-manage their lives – not just their wellbeing – in one centralised space. Nice.

Finally, a podcast worth listening to:

Sabine VanderLinden of Alchemy Crew catches up with Sebastien Gaudin of The CareVoice to talk through the Embedded Health report published a few weeks back.

To listen: https://apple.co/3P5rAcl
To access the report: https://sonr.global/embedded-health-the-next-growth-frontier-for-insurance/

ESG climbing the agenda

When it hits 40-degrees in the UK, you know sh*t’s getting real.

This week we see climate risk platform Zesty.ai has raised a $33m Series B.

Zesty’s AI tech and risk platform draws from 200bn data points (including satellite imagery, sensor data and weather reports) and helps insurers determine a property’s risk of a wildfire or other extreme weather event.

On the partnership from a couple from Sønr clients: Admiral and Generali.

Admiral has teamed up with Ondo, providing 20k Admiral customers with a free Leakbot, its IoT sensor.

Ondo, which completed a SPAC IPO earlier this year, has developed the sensor to provide real-time alerts to property owners, enabling them to quickly manage water leaks and prevent them from becoming expensive claims.

And, also in the UK, Generali has partnered with flood insurtech Previsico to increase their UK flood emergency response readiness.

Customers will be able to receive email alerts and access a flood dashboard which can predict the time and depth of flooding up to 48H in advance. They do this by leveraging hydrodynamic modelling, drawing on data sources like satellite imagery and weather data from the MET office.

Clever clever.

Planes, cars and partnership

A couple of partnerships worth sharing.

UNIQA‘s innovation hub Cherrisk and B2B marketplace Baoba have jointly launched a parametric flight disruption product.

Founded in 2021, Baoba connects insurers, technology and data vendors to deliver data-driven micro-insurance solutions.

The new solution will be first launched in the German and Hungarian markets, offering automated access to VIP lounges in case of a flight delay more than two hours.

What I’d like to see is a parametric VIP lounge solution.
Unsurprisingly they’re all full. Probably with Baoba customers.

The other is from recent Uber acquisition Car Next Door, which is teaming up with Oz startup Koba to offer insurance specifically designed for car sharing.

Car Next Door provides owners with a platform where they can list their vehicles so they can be rented and aims to help close a protection gap in car sharing, which traditional insurers tend to avoid.

This has got to be the next step in car ownership.

A select few from around the world.

SCOR is partnering with Concirrus. SCOR will use Concirrus data modelling capabilities to improve its marine line’s loss ratios.

Element has landed a $21.9m Series B to invest into new product categories and continue its growth.

NZ startup JAVLN has raised $7.42m for its international expansion. JAVLN, which offers cloud-based insurance software for insurers and brokers, will use the funds to enter the Australian market and then onto Asian Pacific.

B3i, the blockchain venture backed by 20+ insurers and reinsurers is closing its doors citing “not enough support to continue”.

I want to dig deeper on this one and would love to hear more from anyone involved.

Ending on a positive, early-stage incubator Insurtech Gateway successfully closed its Seed Fund II.

The plan is to support 20 teams from pre-Seed to Series A in the next four years and help close the early-stage funding gap. Congrats team IG.

SøNws improvements

We’ve been interviewing for a bunch of roles recently, including a f/t copywriter.

In one of the interviews I was told SøNws is too long a read. And so I thought I’d try a shorter version.

Let me know what you think. Your input could make or break whether this person gets the job ☺

—

Before I go, something I promised last week:

The Open & Embedded Insurance Observatory has published their latest report exploring how Open Finance is transforming the industry.

And how by learning from the past, we can finally begin to improve the future of insurance, put up fewer barriers and create international opportunities. All whilst remaining fully focused on the consumer.

Have a read, it’s a good one.

Time for a run. In the sun.

Have a good weekend.

Matt

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