Global Insurtech Firms Increasingly Focused on Embedded Insurance and Leveraging AI Algorithms — Report
The Insurtech 50 is CB Insights’ annual list of the 50 most promising private insurtech companies in the world.
This year’s winners are working on everything from AI assistants to embedded insurance.
CB Insights has unveiled the third annual Insurtech 50 — a list of “the 50 most promising private insurtech companies in the world.”
Highlights from the 2024 cohort include:
The 50 winners include 23 tech vendors and 27 insurers and intermediaries.
$5.6B in equity funding “raised over time, including $1B in 2024 so far (as of 8/19/24).”
Forty percent of winners are early-stage insurtechs “addressing everything from wildfire risk to genAI-powered workflow automation.”
More than a dozen countries represented, “spanning Asia, Australia, Europe, and North America.”
500+ business relationships “since 2020, including with industry leaders like Swiss Re and Tokio Marine.”
CBInsights research team picked winning companies “based on CB Insights datasets, including deal activity, industry partnerships, team strength, investor strength, patent activity, employee headcount, and proprietary Commercial Maturity and Mosaic scores.”
CBInsights also dug into Analyst Briefings submitted directly to them by startups.
The cohort has raised $5.6B “across 210+ disclosed equity deals to date (as of 8/19/24). Next Insurance and Coalition lead in disclosed equity funding among the cohort ($1.1B and $770M, respectively).”
In 2024 so far, this year’s winners have “raised $1B across 38 disclosed equity deals.”
Just 5 deals account for more than half of this funding total:
- Altana AI — $200M Series C
- ICEYE — $93M Series D
- Vitesse — $93M Series C
- Cover Genius — $80M Series E
- Hyperexponential — $73M Series B
Altana AI reached a $1B valuation “following its Series C round in July 2024.”
This earned it a spot in the unicorn club alongside “the other unicorns in this year’s Insurtech 50 cohort: Accelerant, Coalition, and Next Insurance.”
Forty percent of this year’s Insurtech 50 winners “are early-stage companies (i.e., primarily seed or Series A).”
These companies are the fastest-growing “among those analyzed, with a median 12-month headcount growth rate of 45% — 23 points higher than the median for the rest of the cohort.”
Comparatively, 46% of winners are “mid-stage (i.e., Series B or C), and 14% are late-stage (i.e., primarily Series D+).”
MS&AD Ventures has invested “in 5 of this year’s winners, leading among venture capital (VC) firms, including corporate venture capital firms.”
The investor has “backed 4 insurance providers — Accelerant, Anzen, Next Insurance, and Wagmo — and 1 tech vendor, Artificial Labs.”
Following MS&AD Ventures are Felicis, General Catalyst, Nationwide Ventures, and Portage — each of these investors has backed 4 winners.
When it comes to investment activity in 2024, Portage leads in “the number of winners backed. So far this year, it has backed 3 insurance providers: CoverTree, Faye, and Hellas Direct.”
This year’s Insurtech 50 winners are “collectively headquartered across more than a dozen different countries.”
The majority of these companies (30) are “based in the United States.”
Among US metro areas, New York and Silicon Valley lead the pack, “as they are both home to 10 of the winners.”
These metro areas are followed “by Boston (4 winners) and Atlanta (2 winners).”
The UK follows the US with 8 winners — 6 based in London and 2 near Birmingham.
Over 7,700 people are employed “by the 2024 Insurtech 50 winners, with 4 companies employing about a third of the cohort’s workers: Next Insurance, Coalition, ICEYE, and Cover Genius.”
From July 2023 to July 2024, this year’s winners “created more than 1,400 jobs. One winner more than tripled its headcount over the period: Sixfold (+267% YoY).”
The median 2024 Insurtech 50 winner has “raised $0.6M in equity funding per employee. Altana AI and Next Insurance lead among the winners, each having raised $1.6M in equity funding per employee.”
Forty-one of the 50 winners have a CB Insights Mosaic score — “a proprietary measure of private company health and growth potential — of at least 700 out of 1,000 (as of 8/26/24). Compared to all private companies — insurtechs or otherwise — with Mosaic scores, these 41 winners rank in the top 3% by Mosaic score.”
Next Insurance and Coalition — with Mosaic scores “of 898 and 881, respectively — hold the highest scores among this year’s winners.”
Most of the winning tech vendors “offer AI products, which aligns with the broader momentum toward AI (and generative AI) adoption across the insurance industry.”
Applications often center on prioritization use cases, “like risk ranking for underwriters and claims triage for adjusters.”
The winners’ business relationships “often incorporate the use of AI.”
Recent examples with industry figures include:
- Reask and AXA Climate — March 2024
- Akur8 and Tokio Marine HCC — April 2024
- Indico Data and Convex — June 2024
CB Insights Business Relationship Insights: Tokio Marine HCC adopts Akur8’s machine learning pricing platform to enhance insurance model efficiency
MGAs — intermediaries with delegated “underwriting authority from one or more insurance carriers as well as related entities like managing general underwriters — represent a sizable portion of the 2024 Insurtech 50 list.”
Their presence reflects broader industry momentum “toward the business model.”
Notably, most insurtechs within “the commercial category are MGAs that offer property & casualty insurance to businesses.”
Read the full article: https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2024/08/229390-global-insurtech-firms-increasingly-focused-on-embedded-insurance-and-leveraging-ai-algorithms-report/
