Australian insurtech start-up Kanopi has won the Australian round of Zurich Financial Services Australia's global Innovation Championship for 2023.
Now in its fourth year, the Zurich Innovation Championship enables start-ups to work with Zurich to solve key challenges in the insurance industry. This year, the insurance giant focused on customer experience, commercial insurance, distribution partnerships, digital enablement, and sustainability.
Kanopi is a cloud-native, data-driven platform that uses modular, low-code software to help insurers create, manage, distribute, embed, and scale new products to customers. It brought home the bacon for its innovative customer-facing software platform designed to empower insurers and their customers.
“As an insurer, we understand how quickly risks can change. Investing in innovative, digital solutions is incredibly important to ensure we are evolving at the same rapid pace and can continue to serve customers to the high standard Zurich is known for,” said Jacqui Lennon, head of retail at Zurich Australia and New Zealand.
Kanopi founder and chief executive Nigel Fellowes-Freeman said: “We are incredibly excited to win the Australian round of the Zurich Innovation Championship – and at the prospect of Zurich's support to really scale our product offering to the next level.”
The 2023 Zurich Innovation Championship attracted a record number of submissions, confirming its status as one of the largest start-up events in the industry. Globally, the competition saw a record 3,500 applicants – up from over 2,600 last year – with the Australian round receiving over 100 entries.
“The Zurich Innovation Championship provides a fantastic opportunity for us to support start-ups on their journey, propel their solutions and fresh ideas to market, and have a significant positive impact on our industry, customers, and community,” Lennon said.
As the winner of the Australian round, Kanopi will present to Zurich executives in Switzerland at the global round against other national winners from across the world. The overall global winner will then enter a four-month accelerator program to test their solution, receiving up to US$100,000 in funding and up to US$120,000 for software and cloud support services.
