Aviva to acquire majority stake in Neos Ventures
Who’s involved? Aviva is to acquire a majority stake in London-based insurtech Neos Ventures, which helps customers to monitor and protect their homes with connected devices. The size of the stake was not disclosed.
What’s happening? Neos combines connected home devices – such as cameras and sensor technology – with home insurance.
This enables homeowners to quickly detect water leaks, smoke or intruders, with instant alerts to their smartphones.
Significance of deal: The agreement to buy the majority stake builds on Aviva’s existing relationship with Neos.
The insurer, through its corporate capital venture fund, Aviva Ventures, announced a strategic investment in Neos in 2017. It is part of Aviva’s strategy to build closer relationships with customers
Timeline: The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to complete in the first quarter of 2019.
Mapfre to invest €25m in insurtech venture capital fund
Who’s involved? Spanish re/insurer Mapfre will invest €25m ($28.3m) in the Alma Mundi insurtech venture capital fund, which is managed by Mundi Ventures.
What’s happening? The investments will focus on artificial intelligence and big data technologies, with investments primarily being made in Europe and Israel.
Significance of deal: The fund takes the form of a platform for identifying early stage startups whose technology can be applied for internal process optimisation and product generation, as well as attracting clients.
Mapfre has said its objective is twofold: securing an additional business contribution to the group and generating a financial return on its investments.
Timeline: Mapfre’s venture capital investment in insurancestarted in 2016 with the acquisition of a minority interest in Alma Mundi Innvierte Fund, an investment fund that finances different start-ups, including Spanish, Latin American and US companies.
Plug and Play invests in Betterview’s property data platform
Who’s involved? California-based artificial intelligence start-up Betterview has secured an investment from US venture capital fund Plug and Play Ventures. Terms of the funding were not disclosed.
What’s happening? Betterviewuses aerial imagery, along with a growing number of other data sources like historical weather, to determine the characteristics and condition of roofs and the risk of future insurance claims.
Significance of deal: Betterview plans to use the funding to expand its AI capabilities to new imagery sources, as well as improve its property data and analytics platform.
Timeline: Plug and Play Ventures’ relationship with Betterview goes back to 2016 when they were selected out of 800 start-ups to be part of the inaugural batch of insurtechs it would support.
Atidot partners with Sureify to identify lapsing life insurance customers
Who’s involved? Californian-based predictive analytics data provider Atidot has partnered with US -headquartered Sureify to provide life insurers with data insights to identify lapsing customers, as well as cross and up-selling opportunities.
Sureify’s life and annuity platform aims to help insurers improve their digital sales, service, and engagement.
What’s happening? The partnership aims to provide insurers with way to collect and previously unnoticed data to produce insights that can be used. For example, Sureify’s Lifetime platform allows policyholders to share their social media accounts, geolocation, IoT data, engagement analytics.
Significance of deal: By providing insurers with tools to better identify consumer needs and improve client interactions with their clients, this will help ensure policies remain up-to-date and relevant for customers.
Timeline: The partnership was announced on 20 November