The industry GOATS.
Together. In one study.
The mother of all innovation studies.
Quant and qual. Data and interviews.
6 months of world-class insights.
Trends. Playbooks, Case Studies.
Dropped every week.
And then the rankings.
Think Insurtech 100 meets Forward50. The kitemark for insurtechs.
Established tech and emergent.
Launched exclusively on the biggest stage our industry has to offer.
Sounds dreamy? It will be.
Our last report reached 350k people.
I’ve no doubt this’ll be bigger. And better.
Things I need from you:
A name for this study. Working, internal title is – Beyond Boundaries: The Sønr 2025 Innovation Index
Which insurers and tech co’s are truly moving the dial. If you have an insurer in mind, message me directly. For tech co’s I’ll share a link in the next week or two for submissions.
That is it.
The new brand. The official launch partner, All that – next time.
A note to clients:
You’ll be hearing more from us in the coming weeks. Consider yourselves officially recruited. I mean, I guess it’s optional, but we’d love you to be part of this!
For now, let’s get into a little more of what’s been going on around the world.
They were named #1 Finance Accelerator in the UK by the FT. Couldn’t be happier for them.
The lab has climbed nine places to rank 13th out of 3,000 startup hubs across Europe. Their alumni now span 29 countries worldwide, with portfolio companies generating £200m in premium for the Lloyd’s market.
Super impressive right?
For me, for Sønr, we absolutely love working with them. For the past few years this has been in the role as their Scouting Partner, After a successful pilot in 2024, this has stepped up to us also supporting their new IMS initiative – increasing the pace of tech adoption across the market. More on this next time.
The other friend of Sønr I wanted to give a shout out to is CompScience – who was our #1 in the Forward50 Americas in 2023. They’ve just announced the successful $27.6m Series B.
It’s a super interesting and innovative business – providing safety solutions and workers’ comp insurance using video analytics and AI smarts. I mean, I don’t want to say their success is all because of Sønr…but…😉
Cyber remains a hot pick but who’s leading the charge?
Cyber is back, front and centre, this week.
Again, it feels like I’m just pushing client news. It just so happens they seem to be the ones driving the charge. Coincidence? Maybe. But I doubt it.
First up is Converge Insurance – an advanced cyber risk management and underwriting company which has received $5m from our much loved client QBE Ventures.
The two companies have been working together for a few years. In the words of Lynn Thompson of QBEV: ‘It’s been a journey to find the right cyber insurance partner for QBE Insurance who can fuse “always on” cyber preparedness with insurance discipline. Thomas Kang and team deeply understand what it takes to build an ecosystem and data model for informed decision-making.’
Another on the investment front – Coalition, a company I respect very highly and one listed in our Insurtech 100 2021 🤷- has secured a $30m equity investment from another equally loved client, Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance.
The partnership aims to enhance access to cyber insurance solutions worldwide by integrating Coalition’s proactive risk management approach with MS&AD’s global insurance capabilities. Nice.
Parametric: Protecting the Underserved
Starting with a M&A and NormanMax Insurance Holdings, the Miami-based provider of parametric re/insurance solutions, has agreed to acquire FloodFlash, UK’s parametric flood MGA.
FloodFlash, who also happens to be a Lloyd’s Lab alumnus, will continue to operate as an MGA and Lloyd’s coverholder, and the FloodFlash product will continue to be available to distributors and customers in the US, UK and beyond.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.
A couple on the investment front.
Floodbase – the parametric platform for insuring uncovered flood risk – announced a $5m round.
And Adaptive Insurance, a Texas-based climate resilience company, has secured a $5m Seed to accelerate the rollout of its AI-driven parametric insurance solutions.
Keeping with parametric, I thought this was an interesting first.
Weather Risk Management Services (WRMS) – an agriculture and climate risk management firm, and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), have partnered to launch Iraq’s first parametric insurance pilot scheme.
The aim is to protect smallholder farmers and micro-entrepreneurs from climate change risks. Sounds like a very good thing, this.
On that note, another great initiative is Blue Marble launching the Blue Marble Impact Reinsurance Facility. This is a global initiative designed to expand parametric climate insurance coverage for underserved communities across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
💡 The Fast Five: Funding, Growth & Innovation
Right, I’m up against it. I’m in London Town and have a client session kicking off in quite literally minutes…😬😬
Pet – Napo has landed a £12m Series B. As is now pretty common parlance, the money will be put into AI and automation capabilities, drive market share growth, and grow the team as the company expands geographically.
Home – Just Move In has secured an $8m Series A. These guys simplify the home-moving process by consolidating services like council tax, utilities, broadband, and insurance into a single platform, streamlining tasks that typically require multiple interactions. I like it.
Life & Health – Brazil’s Azos also raised a $30.5m Series B. Focused on making life insurance more accessible and affordable, it offers customisable policies with a fast, digital-first application process. Nice.
General – India’s InsuranceDekho has raised $70m. Serving over 10.2 million customers nationwide, they issue 21 new policies every minute. A great stat. They also offer 720+ insurance products across categories such as Motor, Health, Life and Corporate Business. Good to see BNP Paribas Cardif (via Eurazeo) in on the investment action.
The number of active VCs in the US has dropped 25% since 2021, falling to 6,175 in 2024. With investors playing it safe – funding is flowing to giants like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Stripe, it leaves smaller startups struggling.
Fewer investors mean longer private runs for big names. It also means tougher funding conditions for newcomers.
The question is – what’s the impact for the next wave of innovators?
It’s a paper published by Artificial exploring how emerging tech, including AI-driven underwriting models, is reshaping how risks are assessed and policies are priced.
The report highlights four key adoption pathways: pure algorithmic underwriting, augmented underwriting (AI + human oversight), digital broker facilities, and active portfolio trackers.
Definitely worth a run through if this is your world.
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Right, I am done.
Done. Done.
Ping me if you’d like to get involved in the study or have thoughts on where we could/should take it. We’re still kinda open to suggestions.
If you’re not working with Sønr yet but have a need for better understanding market trends, competitor activity or you actively need to scout and assess tech to solve a need – drop me a line.
