Insurance, in general, supports businesses mitigate risk, protect their employees and provides them the confidence to achieve their goal/ambition during the uncertain condition. Notably, the insurance also contributes to the economy as well.
Elevating the insurance industry to a new standard!
Having said that, some feels the underlying systems that insurance is built on are failing, leaving businesses exposed to risk. In this case, Cytora, based out of London was founded to elevate the insurance industry to a new standard where insurance is simple, fast and built on a foundation of tractable data.
£25 million funding!
Recently, Cytora has raised £25 million series B funding round led by EQT Ventures. Additionally, the existing investors including Cambridge Innovation Capital and Parkwalk also participated in the round along with a number of angel backers.
Cytora – Heads up!
For the uninitiated, Cytora transforms underwriting for commercial insurance. The Cytora API-enabled Underwriting Platform enables insurers to underwrite more accurately, reduce frictional costs and deliver fairer prices to their customers.
Founded by Aeneas Wiener, Andrzej Czapiewski, Joshua Wallace and Richard Hartley in 2014, Cytora is a spin-out of the University of Cambridge.
“With this investment, we’re looking forward to widening our impact and helping accelerate the insurance industry’s digital transformation,” said Hartley.
7 days to just 30 seconds!
“Over the next 24 months, we’re going to scale across the insurance value chain and move into new geographies.” According to Richard Hartley, Cytora is able to distil the seven-day underwriting process down to 30 seconds via its API.
The company launched its first product in 2016 in an attempt to implement AI to commercial insurance supported by various public and proprietary data including property construction features, company financials and local weather.
The Cytora Risk Engine uses artificial intelligence to learn the patterns of different risks and loss outcomes over time and computes a rank, score, and price for every property and company in the population.
ARR license fee!
The list of Cytora’s clients now includes QBE, AXA XL, MS Amlin, and Starr. In terms of business model, Cytora generates revenue by charging a yearly ARR license fee, which increases based on usage and per line of business.
“We’re seeing a radical transformation in insurance, with organisations now expecting the same level of simplicity, transparency and convenience from their business insurers as they’re getting from consumer insurers and digital banks,” said Lyle Fong, partner and investment adviser at EQT.
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