This week, Socotra made an acquisition. Guidewire released a new product. Pie Insurance reported improving numbers. Fenris Digital and Counterpart formed separate partnerships. Trellis secured an investment. Finally, new data shows insurtechs are the largest class of fintech “unicorns.”
Socotra, developer of a cloud-based insurance platform, has acquired Avolanta, a software start-up also in the insurance space.
Neither side disclosed financial terms. Plans call for the Avolanta team to join Socotra.
Launched in 2018, Avolanta has a cloud-based platform that lets insurers rapidly innovate and roll out new products with a unified portal. In addition, agents can collaborate with customers through secure, shared online applications. Insurers can use the platform to deliver customized experiences and automate data capture and analytics, among other tasks.
With the sale, Avolanta’s technology will become known as the Socotra Unified Portal.
Socotra, launched in 2014, offers a cloud-based platform that helps insurers bring innovative products to market. It relies on open APIs and publicly available documentation so insurers and their “implementation partners” can quickly and efficiently develop products.
Guidewire has released Elysian, a new cloud-based software product that helps insurers quickly connect to third-party apps, launch lines of business quickly and expand distribution.
The product accomplishes each task through Integration Gateway, a cloud-based microservice that externalizes integration logic and orchestrates calls to and from InsuranceSuite and third-party applications.
As a result, it makes things easier to integrate with more than 170 partner apps on the Guidewire Marketplace, according to the product announcement.
MGA Pie insurance reported expanded premium levels in its 2022 first quarter.
The insurtech focused on workers’ compensation insurance for small businesses said it more than doubled gross written premium in the 2022 first quarter compared to the same period the year before. The company also increased its annualized run rate premium to nearly $300 million.
Pie said it more than doubled the number of its insurance agency partners, to in excess of 2,800 independent agents in the US. They submit more than 30,000 applications each month with more than 40% submitted through Pie’s proprietary API, the company said.
“There remains an incredible opportunity for disruption in the small business commercial insurance market, and Pie’s growth across every facet of the business is a testament to the demand for affordably priced and accessible coverage,” John Swigart, co-founder and CEO of Pie Insurance, said in prepared remarks.
Fenris Digital is partnering with InsuranceGIG to grow data integrations in the industry.
Fenris is an insurance data sourcing innovator that provides a suite of API-delivered SOC 2 compliant products. InsuranceGIG is an API AppMarket that connects buyers and sellers and is designed to make insurance buying and selling easier.
Their combined effort is intended to provide commercial and property data prefill to agencies, wholesales and carriers and also grow the InsuranceGIG ecosystem.
Counterpart, a management liability insurtech MGU, is linking with Aspen Insurance Holdings, Ltd. to expand management liability insurance to more small businesses.
Specifically, their partnership is intended to bring Aspen’s management liability products to small businesses in more industries and geographies.
Counterpart touts its management liability rating systems to measure small business risk exposures as highly advanced. The ratings systems help it offer insurance products, broker tools and HR services to small business clients, the company said.
In March, Counterpart raised $30 million in new venture capital. Including that Series B financing, it has raised about $40 million to date.
The insurtech Trellis has secured an investment from Amex Ventures.
Trellis did not disclose the specific amount, but the San Francisco-based company has raised $17 million to date.
The company has a tech and services platform designed to help consumers access their insurance information. It helps partners integrate insurance as part of their selection of financial offerings by giving consumers a more integrated insurance shopping experience.
The Trellis Savvy digital recommendation platform is an end-to-end API-driven product that helps consumers instantly compare and purchase car insurance within a partner’s app or website.
Insurtech start-ups form a large chunk of fintech launches that have achieved unicorn status, according to the latest data from the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship.
The organization found that a tenth of all companies with unicorn status in the global fintech space are insurtech start-ups.
Digging deeper, the group found that the US accounts for nearly two-fifths of the world’s insurtech unicorns, followed by the UK in a distant second place.
The center also ranked the top insurtech unicorns in the US for 2022. From first place to fifth: Next Insurance, Cedar, Ethos, Newfront and Oscar.
