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USD 125 million Series B: Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund invests in Wefox Group

13. March 2019

Berlin / Abu Dhabi — In Series B, the Wefox Group recei­ves finan­cing in the amount of USD 125 million. Muba­d­ala Invest­ment Company, sove­reign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, leads the round — the capi­tal comes from the newly laun­ched Euro­pean Ventures Fund. In addi­tion, Credi­tease, a Chinese fintech, is joining the Berlin-based company to help with its expan­sion in China. In addi­tion, the US bank Gold­man Sachs is inves­t­ing. Addi­tio­nal funds are contri­bu­ted by exis­ting backers: Hori­zon Ventures, Idin­vest Part­ners, Seed­camp, Speed­in­vest and Target Global are again on board.

Insur­tech wants to expand into the Asian market
The insur­tech also wants to expand: the focus is on the Asian market. Insurtechs are beco­ming incre­asingly popu­lar with inves­tors. They are crea­ting busi­ness models that can digi­tize a previously largely analog market and are thus follo­wing on from the success of fintechs. These have been digi­tiz­ing the banking indus­try for years with the finan­cial support of large inves­tors and some­ti­mes also through part­ner­ships with estab­lished play­ers. Take N26, for exam­ple: in Janu­ary, the fintech raised USD 300 million and joined the club of Unicorns. Insurtechs create simi­lar added value. Start­ups give insu­r­ers the option to moder­nize their own busi­ness via outside inno­va­tion. Not only finan­cial inves­tors but also large corpo­ra­tes are reac­ting to this with incre­asing commit­ment: Alli­anz, for exam­ple. In Febru­ary, the Group increased the volume of its venture capi­tal arm Alli­anz X to EUR 1 billion.

A legal dispute has delayed the big funding round, says startup CEO Julian Teicke. The lawsuit filed by U.S. compe­ti­tor Lemo­nade against Wefox was about copy­right infrin­ge­ment, among other things, and the two compa­nies reached a sett­le­ment seve­ral months later.

Insu­rance brokers can digi­tally manage their custo­mers’ poli­cies via the Wefox plat­form. Custo­mers have access to their insu­rance poli­cies via the Wefox app and can report claims or clarify ques­ti­ons. Insu­rance One is also part of the parent company Wefox Group.
With the help of the Wefox plat­form, smal­ler insu­rance brokers can digi­tize their insu­rance poli­cies , around 1,000 are expec­ted to use the startup’s service. For the end custo­mer, Wefox’s app has the advan­tage that various insu­rance poli­cies can be mana­ged in one place. In this way, a claim or a change of insu­rance can be orga­ni­zed via smart­phone. The brokers receive a so-called port­fo­lio commis­sion per insu­rance policy, which they share with the startup.

Wefox plans to use the money from the finan­cing round to expand, inclu­ding outside Europe. In coope­ra­tion with the former Soft­bank subsi­diary SBI, the project is to be laun­ched in Japan. A total of 200 employees work for the Berlin-based company

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