US v UK v China. And a joke you don't want to miss. 

Two fish are sitting in a tank. One looks over at the other and says: “Hey, do you know how to drive this thing?”

Both of these businesses are pay-by-mile auto insurers, making a play for low-mileage drivers.

Metromile, one of the pay-by-mile auto insurers, founded in 2011, just raised a $90m Series E. That’s on top of the $200m already pocketed. For them, it’s a play to expand beyond their current 8 states and deepen their AI capability.

By Miles on the other hand are a few years behind. Founded in 2015 and underwritten by AXA Insurance UK, they raised £1m led by the JamJar guys. And what are they going to do with it? Quoting their founder they’re going to ‘make everything even better’. Dig a little deeper and they’ve a whole load of features they’ll be rolling out plus a investment into building their customer support team.

The counterbalance to this, and the country where more VC dollars are pouring into startups than any other, is now officially China. They already boast the global #1 Insurtech, ZhongAn, plus, unlike the US VCs who tend to have a very local market mindset, they’re looking to invest where the action is.

With ambitions to be the world leader in AI in the next decade, Chinese investments now account for 48 percent of global AI startup funding. Oh, and they’ve started teaching AI in schools because “focusing on teaching kids to code is considered short-sighted”.

I bloody love that.

We’re next out there with a client in November. If you’d like us to organise an immersion for you and your colleagues, get in touch. We promise to blow your minds (and connect you to the hilt).

THE PHASE FOR PODCASTS AND NEWSLETTERS.
AND NOT MUCH MORE.  
If you want to hear what I have to say on the moral and ethical implications of machine learning, listen here. It’s me, along with my old chums Nick Pester and Saxon East from Insurance Times.

I haven’t listened to it (because I couldn’t think of anything worse than hearing my own voice) but according to my team, who are paid to say nice things, it’s worth getting a cuppa and tuning in.

A TALE OF TWO HALVES
In other news, when we launched Sønr earlier this year, we vowed to only build out the features requested by clients i.e. we wouldn’t jump to the demands of prospective clients. We still hold true to that and, last week, I hooked up with two clients to check-in, get some feedback and start to explore what more we need to add into the roadmap.

FLIPPER, THE PHOENIX OF ENERGY SWITCHING
Founded in 2015, Flipper was set up to disrupt the energy switching market via an intelligent auto-switching algorithm called Jules. Roll forward a couple of years, the business wasn’t working out and the founding team had to put it into administration.

Ah, the highs and lows of startup life.

But that’s not the end of the tale. Wessex Water swooped in, acquired the company and we caught up with Camilla Rigby to hear the update on Flipper.

Having now saved customers more than £7m, or, looking at it another way, each household on average £300-400 per year, it might just fulfil its ambitions after all.

That’s all from me. Enjoy the weekend.

Cheers,

Matt

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MATT CONNOLLY
Founder & CEO

+44 7788 711 104
www.tallt.ventures

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