A data-driven underwriting and risk analytics business has raised £94 million funding led by Japanese giant SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
Envelop Risk says the Series B financing will facilitate its plans to expand its machine learning activity in London and Bermuda, with hopes to fuel growth into new markets globally and beyond cyber reinsurance.
The firm, which has offices in London and Bristol, underwrites bespoke reinsurance for global insurance firms, differentiating its products through the application of advanced cyber analytics, enabling customers to manage their portfolios with greater precision.
It offers reinsurance capacity combined with pricing technology, policy wording and claims support to introduce proven cyber insurance capabilities into maturing cyber insurance markets. It also partners with cyber technology firms to launch embedded insurance solutions.
As part of the transaction, Neil Cunha-Gomes, investor for SoftBank Investment Advisers, will join Envelop Risk’s board of directors. The transaction is planned to close in October 2021, subject to shareholder approval.
The Envelop team combines decades of insurance and capital markets experience with cyber security, engineering, artificial intelligence, and data analytics experts from deep tech enterprises like defence, aerospace and energy.
Envelop has underwritten over $250 million of business since 2018.
“We are delighted to have reached such a significant milestone in our funding journey,” said co-founder and CEO Jonathan Spry.
“This transaction will allow us to continue our leadership in data-driven specialty reinsurance underwriting and will be transformational for our business reach and activity.
“For the first time Envelop Risk will be able to assume positions in risk capital, which gives us greater alignment with our partners.
“We are all really excited to work with SoftBank Investment Advisers and together meet the huge opportunities that we see present in emerging and complex risk underwriting.”
Karol Niewiadomski, senior investor for SoftBank Investment Advisers, said: “While companies all over the world are improving their digital preparedness, the cyber threat landscape continues to evolve at a rapid rate.
“We believe Envelop Risk has developed a proprietary data-driven approach to meet this threat through an enhanced level of protection that directly translates to lower loss ratios. We’re pleased to partner with Envelop Risk in its journey to enable risk capital and provide much needed capacity to the nascent cyber risk market.”