Here’s how Paris-based Akur8 uses AI to make insurance pricing better, faster; raises $30M

Paris-based Akur8 is an insurtech startup automating insurance pricing with its proprietary Transparent AI. The startup has announced today that it has raised $30M (approx €25.1M) in its Series B round of funding.

In a recent development, the startup announced that it has raised $30M (approx €25.1M) in its Series B round of funding. The round saw participation from existing investors BlackFin Capital Partners and MTech Capital. Both the investors have previously invested in the startup’s Series A round as well.

In March 2020, Akur8 raised €8M in its Series A round from BlackFin Capital Partners and MTech Capital. And now, with this current round, the company has raised a total of $42M (approx €35.1M) in funding, to date.

Established in 2009, and run by its 4 founding partners — Laurent Bouyoux, Eric May, Bruno Rostain and Paul Mizrahi, BlackFin Capital Partners is a private equity firm focusing on financial services across continental Europe. It claims to takes either a majority or an influential minority shareholder position into its portfolio companies.

Whereas, MTech Capital is a venture capital firm with offices in Santa Monica and London investing in technology companies operating in the insurance industry.

Akur8 Transparent AI solution

Founded in 2018 by Samuel Falmagne, Akur8 is a developer of an AI-driven insurance pricing platform designed to provide AI-powered pricing automation and optimisation for insurance carriers. 

The company’s cloud-based SaaS platform, integrates with algorithms dedicated to insurance pricing, that can immediately spot anomalies and discover new patterns and lets insurers build risk models that are 10 times faster than the manual process. This enables insurance carriers to improve their profits and win market share with pricing models created and updated in hours instead of months.

Akur8 claims it is the only solution on the market reconciling machine learning and actuarial worlds. In less than two years, the company has acquired more than 30 customers across 10 countries, including global leaders AXA, Generali, and Munich Re, specialty insurers Canopius and Tokio Marine Kiln, insurtechs Wakam and wefox, as well as mutualistic player Matmut. 

Currently, the platform is used daily by 350 users within insurers’ pricing teams, to compute their pricing models across P&C, personal and commercial lines, and health.

The company currently works with clients in Europe, Asia and The Americas from its offices in  Paris, London and New York. It has 20 nationalities represented within its diverse team of 50 employees. 

Use of the funds

The raised capital will help Akur8 to accelerate its international expansion, particularly in the US, as it is the largest insurance market in the world. The company is also looking to establish a presence in APAC in 2022. 

Additionally, the proceeds will also enable Akur8 to develop its product pipeline to cover the full pricing suite, develop US-tailored features, and create more value-added features to enhance existing modules.

Samuel Falmagne, co-founder and CEO of Akur8 says, “This latest milestone will enable us to accelerate the transformation of insurance pricing even further, fuel our international expansion in the US and APAC, and equip P&C and health carriers with a state-of-the-art, integrated pricing solution that we have been building and refining tirelessly.”