Insurance heavyweights back data platform
Who's involved: Reinsurance Group of America (RGA); Guardian Life Insurance Company of America; US-based data platform Omniscience.
What's happening: RGA and Guardian Life have made equity investments in Omniscience. The value was not disclosed.
Significance of development: Omniscience says it offers a platform for processing all data using a problem set rather than using analysis based purely on approximations. "Machine learning and AI have the promise to solve many insurance industry challenges," said Chandra Reddy, head of Japan, RGA. "Through the Omniscience platform, we are currently working to solve some of those challenges in Asia."
Swiss Re ties up with Microsoft
Who's involved: Swiss Re; Microsoft.
What's happening: The pair have formed a partnership in a bid to advance innovation in the insurance industry and extend global financial protection.
Significance of development: Central to the partnership is the launch of Swiss Re's digital market centre, designed to develop "next generation large-scale tools" to improve risk prediction and management in the insurance industry.
AI based insurtech secures $8m series A funding
Who's involved: Akur8, a Paris-based insurtech focused on pricing automation; venture capital firms BlackFin Capital Partners and MTech Capital.
What's happening: Akur8 has completed an €8m ($9m) series A funding round, bringing its total funding to €10m.
Significance of development: Akur8 say the funding will be used to increase its expansion in Europe and the US. The firm added its offering, an artificial intelligence-based algorithm designed to automate the insurance pricing process, enables insurers to build pricing models up to 10 times faster than before.
CNP Assurances venture fund invests in French fintech firm
Who's involved: Open CNP, the corporate venture fund of CNP Assurances; French fintech company Paylead; venture capital financiers Hugues le Bret and Side Capital.
What's happening: Open CNP is participating in the €6m funding of fintech company Paylead, along with Hugues le Bret and Side Capital.
Significance of development: This funding round marks the tenth investment of Open CNP, which has a budget of €100m, over five years.
UK insurtech completes $19.5m funding round
Who's involved: Insurance customer and management platform Instanda; venture capital firm Assembly Capital Partners.
What's happening: Instanda has secured $19.5m in a series A funding round.
Significance of development: The London-based insurtech, which claims to be the first "no-code" business platform, said the funding will be used to support expansion in US, Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Relay Platform raises £3m and launches placement platform
Who's involved: Toronto-based reinsurance carrier platform Relay Platform; venture capital firms American Family, Highline Beta, Plug and Play Ventures.
What's happening: Relay Platform has secured $3m in funding and has released its first online software-as-a-service solution.
Significance of development: Relay Platform says its new offering, aimed at underwriters, ceding teams and reinsurance intermediaries among others, can obtain and follow risk placements quickly and easily.
