Led by former Prudential UK chief executive Rob Devey, a £1 million round of seed investment has been completed by insurance technology start-up Urban Jungle.
The London-based disruptor, founded by Jimmy Williams and Greg Smyth, aims to build what it described as a “better home insurance experience” for renters in the UK. Its target market is the younger population, which the start-up said was being excluded from insurance because of the industry’s failure to keep pace with changing lifestyles.
The use of machine learning to improve risk scoring and a smartphone-first design are among Urban Jungle’s examples of putting modern technologies in place to change the insurance business.
“I’m delighted to be backing Urban Jungle again,” commented Devey, who also led the insurtech’s previous round of funding. “I’m very excited about the huge opportunity to transform the insurance industry using technology, and think this team is superbly well placed to capitalise on that.
“They have proven their ability to execute to a very highly quality over the past year, and I’m confident that they will only accelerate from here.”
Urban Jungle was set up in late 2016 and was brought to market after a small funding round early last year. It is fully regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
“This investment marks a big step towards our mission to build an insurance provider that customers love,” said Williams, chief executive at Urban Jungle. “Through 2017, we focused on building a business that our customers can rely on 100% when something goes wrong. In 2018 we’ll vastly increase the choice of products for our customers, and make all of our products even easier to use.
“We’re delighted to have brought on board such a high-quality group of investors who can help us accelerate towards these goals.”
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