Three Things – Cyber Raise, Distribution Raise & Vivint Strategic Hire – 03/18/2022

Hello!  $225M+ of capital was invested in fintech this week along with some other interesting hiring.  This week we are following a Cyber raise, a distribution raise and smart home tech provider Vivint making a strategic hire for insurance.  Here are the three things we learned:

 [1]

Cowbell Cyber Raises $100Ms B

Cyber insurtech startup Cowbell Cyber announced a $100M Series B fundraise.  They now appear to be a serious player in the emerging cyber cover space.  We have commented before about this emerging area of risk and now with post-COVID and the Ukraine conflict creating even more opportunties, Cowbell has capital to grow strategically and be a full stack carrier, strengthen their reinsurance captive arm and continue to innovate in distribution.  These cyber insurtechs have an opportunity to capture large marketshare with their digital processes.

 [2]

Policygenius Raises $125M

Online distribution focused fintech Policygenius closed a Series E round of $125M.  They focus primarily on life insurance, another area ripe for distribution innovation, and are backed by many life insurers.  They are yet another example of of a startup that avoided a public offering and raised a large sum from venture / private investors instead.  This infusion of capital will help them broaden their no-exam life business and other personal lines which have lagged recently.

 [3]

Vivint Hires Insurance Leader

Smart home tech company Vivint, maker of cameras and other security products, hires industry veteran Ron Davies as Chief Insurance Officer.  Vivint looks to be getting serious about embedding insurance into their smart home automation capabilities.  This will be a rival to Hippo and Kin but rather than having to find capital to back the insurance they wish to sell, they could partner with carriers to embed insurance and take advantage of distribution capabilities and IoT data.

Thank you for following us, we appreciate your feedback and continued support.  Stay tuned for more info to come.  Until next week… stay safe, stay productive!