An Overview of VC Investment in Insurtech

Significant numbers of insurance startups are emerging in the market today, and many are providing brilliant tech-based solutions. Insurtech startups have shown so much promise that venture capital firms are starting to invest heavily in them. In fact, between 2011 and 2017, VC funding for insurtech companies grew 31% annually. Between Series B and Series D funding, $2 billion to $3 billion is being directed to insurance startups annually. Here is a look at some of the most exciting insurtech startups that are receiving significant funding. Lemonade Lemonade is a home and renters insurtech company that is making a lot of waves. The company launched in New York in 2016 but now is planning to expand into California. Lemonade uses artificial intelligence and behavioral economics to optimize accuracy and efficiency. After its latest round of funding, Lemonade has generated $60 million in total. This makes it one of the biggest players in the insurtech startup space. Lemonade’s funding is not coming from average VC firms; it is coming from high-level sources, such as General Catalyst, GV (Google Ventures) and Sequoia. See also: Let’s Make Lemons Out of Lemonade   Friendsurance Friendsurance received $15.3 million in its latest round of funding. The majority of the money invested in this round came from the Hong Kong-based Horizons Ventures. Friendsurance is a sophisticated peer-to-peer insurance startup that has its headquarters in Berlin. Originally, it was only a national company, but it is now expanding internationally. In addition to Horizons Ventures, Friendsurance has received funding from Otto Group Eventures, the European Regional Development Fund and the German Startups Group. With so much financial backing, and a steadily growing customer base, Friendsurance looks poised to succeed internationally. Amodo Amodo is a Croatian insurtech that helps insurance companies get the most out of connected devices. The company lets customers build profiles and provide data, which helps insurance companies address the specific needs of each customer much better. For example, with Amodo's Connected Customer Platform, insurance customers can use their smartphones to prove that they spent time at the gym, to earn lower premiums on health insurance. Like Lemonade and Friendsurance, Amodo has also attracted the interest of some major VC companies. In 2016, Amodo received 450,000 euros of seed funding from an Austrian VC, SpeedInvest. Also like Lemonade and Friendsurance, Amodo is in the process of expanding. The company is trying to break out of the local Croatian market and spread across the world. See also: Top 10 Insurtech Trends for 2017   Insurtech Outlook In the past few years, technology finally appears to have become as useful for insurance as it has for many other industries, such as finance, social networking, and media. This is because insurance companies thrive on data, the compiling of which has become much more advanced. Lemonade, Friendsurance and Amodo are but a few examples of the excitement VCs have for insurtech. As more and more of these startups improve the insurance world for insurers and customers alike, the list of VC-funded insurtech startups will grow exponentially in the coming years.