Insurtech startup Neos has secured more than £1 million in initial seed funding from investors that include British football legend Gary Lineker.
Neos, which has been in development for the past 12 months, is in soft launch as the UK’s first-ever connected home insurance service and plans a full market take-off in early 2017.
With its newly raised capital, the potential industry disruptor is now valued at £8.4 million. Investors include insurtech fund Eos Venture Partners and the experienced team behind
Ingenie, one of the first motor telematics insurance providers in the UK.
Apart from Lineker, other new investors include former
Ageas CEO Barry Smith, former
RSA managing director Steve Broughton and Ingenie founder Richard King.
Smith has also joined the Neos board as chairman while Broughton and King have been appointed as non-executive director and advisor respectively.
“I’m delighted to have invested in and joined the talented and experienced Neos team at this very early stage,” Smith said.
“This is an exciting time for the home insurance market as we start to see new customer value propositions that embrace connected home technology,” he added.
Neos aims to create a new approach to insurance that enables consumers to actively protect their homes and help prevent incidents. The service is combining the latest connected home technology, 24/7 monitoring and emergency assistance and home insurance from
Hiscox, its lead underwriting partner.
Neos was founded in 2015 by CEO Matt Poll, the former director of MORE TH>N, and chief technology officer Krystian Zajac, an established entrepreneur in the connected home space.
“Chapter one of the Neos story reads very well: we’re first to market… we’ve built an incredibly strong management team and we now have the backing of some of the industry’s most respected experts,” Poll said.
“We’ve already had a fantastic customer response from our soft launch and can’t wait to open up the Neos experience to the wider market,” he added.
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