Softbank-led Envelop Risk secures €110.35M for its cyber insurtech platform

Bristol, UK-based Envelop Risk, a company that specialises in cyber underwriting and risk analytics, announced that it has raised $130M (approx €110.35M) in its Series B round of funding. The deal is planned to close in October 2021. 

The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. With this development, Neil Cunha-Gomes, investor for SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join Envelop Risk’s board of directors.

Karol Niewiadomski, Senior Investor for SoftBank Investment Advisers, says, “While companies all over the world are improving their digital preparedness, the cyber threat landscape continues to evolve at a rapid rate. We believe Envelop Risk has developed a proprietary data-driven approach to meet this threat.”

Capital utilisation

The proceeds from this round will enable Envelop Risk to expand its proprietary Machine Learning (ML) and data-driven underwriting activity in London and Bermuda. The funds will also enable the company to accelerate its growth into new markets, globally.

Additionally, the funds will also help the company to expand operations in cyber (re)insurance and cyber technology partnerships, while investing in predictive analytics for assessing the economic consequences of cyber risks to commercial enterprises.

Besides, the firm also intends to launch new products in adjacent areas of corporate risk over the next year. This raise will establish a hybrid balance sheet model, enabling the firm to deploy its own risk capital in alignment with existing partners.

Speaking on the development, Envelop Risk co-founder and CEO, Jonathan Spry, says, “For the first time Envelop Risk will be able to assume positions in risk capital, which gives us greater alignment with our partners. We are all really excited to work with SoftBank Investment Advisers and together meet the huge opportunities that we see present in emerging and complex risk underwriting.”

Data-driven cyber underwriting

Founded in 2016 by Jonathan Spry and Paul Guthrie, Envelop Risk is a specialty cyber and emerging risk underwriting firm. 

The firm was founded on the belief that:

• The security of information systems is critical for ensuring economic progress, and
• Insurance plays an essential role in transferring risk and diffusing effective technology strategies

The company’s proprietary model addresses the complexity of cyber and other emerging risks by combining artificial intelligence (AI), security analytics, intelligence gathering, economic, financial, and behavioural analysis, and modelling & simulation. It applies an augmented intelligence approach to analysis and to underwriting, combining human expertise and information security.

Envelop Risk can offer reinsurance capacity combined with pricing technology, policy wording, and claims support, to introduce cyber insurance capabilities into cyber insurance markets. Additionally, the company also partners with cyber tech firms to launch embedded insurance solutions.

Paul Guthrie explains, “We know that all companies of all sizes will eventually safeguard against increased risk through robust cyber insurance policies. Digital systems have reshaped our world, but they are also vulnerable individually and as integrated networks. Envelop deploys capital thoughtfully into the cyber insurance ecosystem, providing assurance that mitigation resources are available immediately upon an attack, so organisations can continue to function in the face of these risks.”

The firm has already underwritten over $250M of business since 2018. Its team combines decades of insurance and capital markets experience with cyber security, engineering, artificial intelligence, and data analytics experts from deep tech enterprises like defense, aerospace, and energy.