Nottingham-based Percayso Inform, a company that provides insurance intelligence services for insurers and brokers, announced on Thursday, July 27, that it has secured £2.7M (approximately €3.14M) in a fresh round of funding.
Since the company’s introduction to the UK insurance market three years ago, Percayso has teamed with an increasing number of insurers, brokers, and MGAs, in both personal and commercial lines, to transform insurance data into information, insight, and results.
Its 65-strong customer list currently includes Ageas, Covea, Direct Line, Markerstudy, Somerset Bridge, The AA, and many more.
Investors in this round
The round was led by industry veteran Neil Utley and Percayso’s existing Manchester-based venture capital investor Praetura Ventures.
Neil Utley served as chairman of Hastings where he oversaw the management buyout of Insurance Australia Group in 2009 and the insurer’s IPO in 2015. He formerly served as CEO of Privilege Insurance and Cox Insurance Group.
Utley says, “Rich and his team are building one of the most exciting businesses to have emerged in our industry in many years. UK insurance providers have been crying out for a flexible, scalable and easy-to-integrate data intelligence solution.”
David Foreman, MD at Praetura Ventures, adds, “Our relationship with Percayso has gone from strength to strength over the past 16 months, and our team have been impressed with the progress that Percayso has made in such a short space of time. We will be continuing with our More Than Money support and couldn’t be more excited about the road ahead.”
Next-gen insurance intelligence
Founded in 2018 by Simon James, Percayso Inform claims to offer advanced insurance intelligence that goes beyond traditional data enrichment. Its solutions cover all stages of the insurance lifecycle, providing benefits for both insurers and brokers.
“Our modular solution is comprised of three integrated propositions, starting with the Percayso Enrich data hub. Our comprehensive partner network is growing rapidly with public, private and consented data, including powerful private credit bureau data,” says the firm.
Enrich puts an intelligent caching layer in front of each data partner, allowing all of them to be accessible with a single API call and at high volumes.
Enrich is a tool that provides raw data for local processing. Alternatively, it can integrate with the private Percayso Inform platform to summarise and interpret the enriched data.
“Inform” has the capability to combine private bureau data from multiple sources, effectively extracting double the insights compared to a single source. This unleashes game-changing insights for users of the platform.
The company adds, “Our Deploy module puts the power in your hands to make changes to your capstone strategies, realise a single customer view and integrate seamlessly with your existing infrastructure.”
“Our propositions represent a substantial step forward for insurance businesses looking to improve service and retention levels, reduce claims and increase portfolio size and profitability.”
Recent growth and developments
Percayso expanded its offering to give a complete quotation intelligence package after the investment led by Praetura Ventures in March of 2022.
The company’s platform and technology enable insurance providers to take control of their own strategies and deployment by enabling rules and models to be used in their own environments via a SaaS model.
The technology aggregates data from many different sources, allowing intelligence to be accessed with a simple API call at a significant volume.
Additionally, Percayso acquired Cazana this year, which has since changed its name to Percayso Vehicle Intelligence. This acquisition marked an advancement in the company’s intentions to expand into the UK auto insurance market.
Rich Tomlinson, MD at Percayso, says, “We’re delighted to welcome Neil as an investor. He has a breadth of experience and knowledge to share from his 30-plus years of working in our industry at the highest level.”
“In particular, his expertise in the motor insurance market will be invaluable in helping us to achieve our ambitions for Percayso Vehicle Intelligence.”
“And we’re hugely proud that Praetura Ventures are continuing to support us. We’ve forged a fantastic relationship and in particular, I’d like to offer special thanks to Guy Weaver from their team who played a critical role in the Cazana acquisition.”
“As we look ahead, we believe that Percayso Inform will play a key role in helping insurance providers of all shapes and sizes to get more out of the wealth of data available to enable them to write better business.”
“The combined skills and experience that Neil and Praetura Ventures bring to our business will undoubtedly help us to accelerate our growth plans,” adds Tomlinson.
About Praetura Ventures
Praetura Ventures is a VC firm that backs early-stage high-growth companies around the UK with an emphasis on assisting business owners in the North of England.
The firm aims to enhance value after investment and provide the “more than money” assistance that businesses require to succeed, including extra knowledge, resources, networks, and direction, to its investee firms.
Since 2019, Praetura has invested over £20M in 21 companies, including North West HQ businesses Sorted, Culture Shift, LCC and Peak.
The firm also introduced the Venture Partner programme, a cooperative initiative that targets successful, connected, and experienced people who want to add value and may be able to offer mentorship, advice, connections, and funding to the upcoming generation of entrepreneurs.
In just a few months, the firm has grown its Venture Partner base to 50+ members, typically C-suite level individuals.
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