Forward50 report, Tokio Marine + Sønr

Hello.

One liver transplant and a lot of sleep later…I’m nearly recovered from Barcelona.

God, that place is fun.

And what a spectacular event ITC DIA Europe was.

It was standing room only at the Forward50 Europe launch. See more on that below.

Equally, what a delight to share the keynote with Amelie, CEO of Lloyd’s Europe.

It genuinely amazes me just how valuable these gatherings are to meet new folk and connect with old friends. They’re long days but packed full of valuable discussions, content and new learnings.

Hats off to all the ITC DIA team.
You did seriously good.
Next stop… Vegas ??

Sønr + Tokio Marine 
Last week I wrote about a new Sønr feature.
Yesterday Tokio Marine wrote about it also

No one else is even close. Even better, it’s included in your standard Sønr License.

Btw if you’re looking for a use case that delivers immediate ROI…

“Previously, the absence of an information sharing system meant that Tokio Marine’s group companies worldwide conducted searches for potential business partners independently. This decentralized approach resulted in scenarios where multiple group companies unknowingly engaged with the same startup companies.”

For a demo of how this could work for your company, get in touch.

Mobility – new money, new markets
Let’s kick things off in the motor space.

Bdeo, a Spanish AI-powered solution which assesses damage to vehicles (and property), has secured €7.5m in new funding.

The company hopes to use the fresh funds to strengthen its market position in Europe and Latin America.

Finally, less money, more partnership.

Humn.ai, the dynamic pricing platform provider for commercial motor insurance, has announced a partnership with the International Division of QBE. This collaboration aims to offer branded A-rated insurance policies to taxi fleets.

ChatGPT chatbots
It’s amazing how quick new technology is adopted and new products are launched.

GenAI being at the forefront of experimentations.

And with that, Tensorflight – a global AI and image-based insurtech providing automated property inspection, has launched TensorAssist.

This is a chatbot assistant powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 technology.

The virtual assistant will serve as a property analysis expert. Eventually it will be able to offer detailed information on any property requested by the user. Nice huh?

Staying on the property side, UK-based leak detection company Ondo has announced a proof-of-concept pilot with IAG-owned Firemark Collective to help prevent water damage claims in New Zealand and Australia.

Due to differences in how plumbing works in Australia compared to the UK, Ondo will be testing an all-weather version of Leakbot which will sit on pipes and stop taps found outside of properties. Interesting.

And homeowners insurtech Slide Insurance has secured a $35m credit facility to fund tech dev and scale their growth. The new money follows a Series A raise of $105m in November 2021.

Qover, embedded and Zurich
A busy few weeks for the UK insurtech Qover.

They announced a second collaboration with Revolut. This time the pair will focus on providing embedded insurance for a new trip and event cancellation cover – exclusively available to Revolut Ultra plan users and underwritten by Wakam.

And that leads on to Qover successfully closing a $30m Series C up-round funding.

Interestingly Zurich got involved in this one, signalling what is a very sensible commitment to finding new avenues for distributing insurance.

Underwriting innovation
Ask me to write about innovation in underwriting a few years back and I’d have been stumped.

Things change fast.

This week we’re seeing two great insurtechs partnering up – digital risk processing platform, Cytora, and pricing decision firm, hyperexponential.

Through the collaboration quotes can get turnaround in minutes rather than hours.

Underwriters can receive decision-ready risks that have been digitised and evaluated against appetite and priority scored by Cytora. These risks are then passed into hyperexponential’s pricing decision intelligence platform, hx Renew where fully digitised and evaluated risk is priced.

Nice.

Other interesting news is underwriting technology company Insurance Quantified has acquired Groundspeed Analytics, a provider of ingestion and data solutions for P&C insurers.

These guys provide a software platform that helps insurance underwriters perform day-to-day business tasks more efficiently. Dubbed Risk Exchange, the platform officially launched this week and provides underwriters with access to risk capital. It also evaluates whether it’s financially feasible to insure an asset.

Body scanning and better sleep
I’ve covered Neko Health a fair bit in the past.

The Swedish health-tech firm, founded by Spotify founder and CEO Dan Ek, has just raised a €60m Series A.

Neko Health provides non-invasive medical scanning technology for preventative healthcare – 70 sensors can collect 50m data points in ten minutes. Better still, results are available instantly.

It can assist in the detection of conditions including skin conditions, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other metabolic syndromes.

Based out of Berlin, these guys have developed a tech-enabled coaching app based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), which provides data-driven, personalised sleep coaching. Interesting.

Whilst still super early, the team has onboarded over 1k paying users and has now announced the successful closing of its €1.7m pre-Seed funding round.

Lloyd’s – from demo days to appointed representatives 
There’s something special about Lloyd’s Lab.

Whilst the incubation and acceleration model has been around a while (and having mostly failed to meet the needs of the industry), it’s a whole different beast at Lloyd’s. In a very good way.

Whilst, as their scouting partner I’d love for Sønr to take the credit, it really is down to a blend of real want and need from the marketplace, coupled with a genuinely fantastic and passionate lab team.

Bring those together and it’s a winning formula.

Wednesday’s Demo Day was another epic example of just what can be achieved in such a short time.

And whilst chatting Lloyd’s, a man synonymous with the lab and still actively involved on the mentoring side is Ed Gaze, who is now running Innovative Risk Labs (IRL).

It was great to see IRL in the press recently becoming the first Lloyd’s broker of its kind.

IRL launches, incubates and supports insurtechs. They can now secure Lloyd’s capacity for insurtech brokers and MGAs worldwide. Love it.

Calling all insurtechs
Think you’ve got what it takes to be in this year’s Insurtech100?

If so, check out our brand new application page. Each year the Insurtech100 gets bigger and better, so for the first time ever, we’ve decided to open up applications so you can share all your latest news and achievements direct with our judges.

The deadline is coming up pretty fast so get your applications in now.

Forward50: Europe Edition
It’s launched. It’s out. Have a read.

The report provides detailed insight on the key emerging trends and the leading early stage innovation that will be hitting the insurance market in 3-5+ years.

It’s a one-of-a-kind study and is a must read for anyone tracking this space.

Download the Forward50.

The next edition will be focussed on the Americas and launched at ITC Vegas.

Make sure you register for that one early. Based on the Barcelona turnout it’ll get booked up quickly ??

Commercial Sustainability 2.0
Speaking of one-of-a-kind, the Sønr team were in action again, this time with Sabine VanderLinden and Alchemy Crew.

The event brought together a quite simply exceptional line up of contributors from Swiss Re, WTW, RGAX and One Data, plus an all-star team of panelists. The task? Provide perspective and inspiration on the topic of Sustainability in the P&C and L&H sectors. Insight, reflection and healthy debate (thanks, Simon!) – what more could you want?

Watch this space for a follow-up report, and please let us know if you’re interested in contributing or attending what will be another sell-out event in Vegas for v3.0.

—

Right, that’s me. Done.

Marseille next week. Tel Aviv the week after.
Shout if you’d like to say hello.

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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