Gallagher Re Releases Inaugural Global InsurTech Report For Q1 2022

Preface

We have an exciting 2022 series ahead of us but before we delve into the future, let us revisit the past. 2021 total global InsurTech funding concluded the year with a record-breaking $15.8 billion, across another record-breaking 564 deals. To put this into perspective, 2021 saw more capital invested into InsurTechs globally than in 2020 and 2019 combined ($13.4 billion for those two years). It is an even more astounding total when we consider the total was in excess of 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 combined ($14.5 billion).

2021, as a year, broke pretty much every single record that had gone before (since we began tracking in 2012). Total amount of funding, deals done, international participation, unicorn creation, number of companies that went public, biggest single deal (Integrity Marketing Group raised an incredible $1.2 billion in December of 2021) — the list of records broken is very long. As the graph shows below, of the $15.8 billion raised, $9.4 billion went into P&C InsurTechs, and the remaining $6.4 billion was invested into L&H businesses (approximately 40.5% of the total funding went into L&H businesses — a huge uptick in Q4 made this possible).

During the entirety of 2021, of the 564 deals that took place, most of the capital raised was unsurprisingly invested into businesses during their Series C to E+ rounds. In terms of deal volume, Seed/Angel funding and Series A funding (early-stage) was relatively consistent across all four quarters — with the combined total of ‘early-stage’ funding being approximately $500 million per quarter. Per individual deal, we observed the average Seed/Angel round raised $8.98 million and the average Series A round raised $32.9 million, respectively. There was, however, far more flux with later rounds across the quarters. In 2021 Q1, collective Series B rounds raised $197 million but ultimately reached an average annual rate (per quarter) of $592 million, thanks to a surge later in the year, particularly in Q3 ($879.6 million). The average Series B round raised (per individual deal) was $53.8 million. Series C and Series D were particularly volatile; the lowest Series C collective rounds came in Q3 with $460.5 million raised/invested, the highest came just a quarter prior with $1.47 billion invested. The average Series C round raise (per individual deal) was $120.2 million. Series D collective rounds registered a low of $285 million in Q3, with Q2 being the highest quarter (as it was for Series C) with $1.6 billion raised/invested. The average Series D round raise (per individual deal) was $298 million. Finally, Series E collective rounds were reasonably consistent at the $600 million mark from Q1 to Q3 until Q4, where we observed an incredible $1.85 billion raised/invested globally at this stage. The average Series E round raise (per individual deal) was $539 million.

In such a short period of time, we have observed an incredible upwards trajectory of global InsurTech funding. If we cast our minds back, as recently as 2016 felt like the real picking up of InsurTechs (as businesses and as a label), capturing the imagination of our industry and investors alike. Each record-breaking quarter, henceforth, felt like new frontiers were crossed (and they were), but the sense of this growth continuing in perpetuity felt unlikely (especially when we consider individual business performance). And yet here we are. Since the first quarter of 2012 to the end of 2021, an incredible $41.65 billion has been invested into InsurTech globally, across 2,249 deals. Sixty three countries have been represented through InsurTech investment participation.

There have been many reasons as to why we have observed such consistent InsurTech investment growth. First and foremost is the label itself — everything and anything that has a technological slant has adopted the label of ‘InsurTech’. As a catch all term for pretty much all new businesses and ventures, the data which reflects investments into these new businesses are being cataloged under an undisciplined definition of the label ‘InsurTech’. For example, this quarter UK-based ‘InsurTech’ Accelerant raised a highly impressive $190 million from institutional investors; Altamont Capital Partners, Deer Park Road Management Company, Eldridge, MS&AD Ventures and Marshall Wace, at a valuation of $2.1 billion. Accelerant has been founded by industry experts with decades of experience between them as an underwriting group specialized in serving global MGAs and (re)insurers. Executive and operating staff at Accelerant all herald from household-name incumbents from our industry. Is there a technological angle? Absolutely, but would this raise have been captured under the label of ‘InsurTech’ seven years ago? Possibly not. To that end, if we were to go back and look at every single investment in our industry when technology was first truly yoked and re-appropriate not only the label of ‘InsurTech’ but also re-catalog the investment data, the growth trajectory of ‘InsurTech’ investments worldwide of later years might look a little less impressive and stark. Technology is here to stay. It is high time we now acknowledge that the vast majority of new projects, or ventures, or businesses will be heavily supported by technology and so we should give the label of ‘InsurTech’ a much needed redefinition. In fact, it would be more noteworthy if a business tried to break into our industry that was not supported by technology.

Secondly, there is undoubtedly a realization now pretty much across the global board that technology will be the platform, enabler and product that continues to keep our industry relevant and, hopefully, cost efficient. The last two years in particular (COVID-19 induced remote promotion and rapid adoption of technology either through partnerships with InsurTechs or internal development initiatives) have really solidified the aforementioned statement that technology is here to stay.

Thirdly, as other investable markets become more challenging, and in some cases stale, InsurTech investment opportunities continue to lure in investors of all shapes and sizes. From the industry CVCs to those traditional venture capitalists who are on the lookout for the next big thing. There are over 1,200 non-industry investors who have participated in InsurTech investments since 2012, and while valuations of certain InsurTech-business models (typically risk originators for high volume commoditized products) remain at the levels that they are today, there is naturally going to be an interest from those wishing to place their bets. The recent pausing of the SPAC-led trajectory to going public for a handful of well-known InsurTechs suggests that some investors are becoming stricter about the types of success criteria they need to meet, and prices they want to achieve before pushing for a liquidity event, but there seems to be no slowing down in the earlier phases of fundraising. Q4 of 2021 oversaw the largest quarter ever of early-stage funding (Seed/Angel and Series A rounds); $635 million in Q4, meaning that early-stage funding for 2021 as an entire year totaled an impressive $2.2 billion, almost as much as all funding recorded in 2017 ($2.3 billion). This comparison is even more astounding when we consider a common trait of businesses raising seed capital is that they themselves are often pre-(meaningful) revenue. Finally, on the issue of contemporary InsurTech early-stage funding, as we have already noted that Seed/Angel rounds averaged $8.98 million and Series A rounds averaged $32.9 million for InsurTech last year — in 2021 the average ‘Seed’ round of start-ups in financial services (more broadly) was approximately $4 million. InsurTechs are raising, on average, well in excess of double when compared with their FinTech cousins in these earliest of stages.

If we look superficially at the InsurTech news space as it is often portrayed today, InsurTechs are gobbling up exorbitant amounts of cash, flailing in stock value and not actually adding very much value to the end product, consumer, price and/or efficiency. One could be forgiven for thinking that, to date, all this fuss and attention has been a relative damp squib. There are dynamics afoot, however, that we really should be focusing on if we want to better understand which businesses to support and rally around. It is no coincidence that a reasonable majority of the businesses who have raised a lot of capital have gone public and not performed as many might have hoped. Our industry does not have a history of observing winners who rush and scale on poor underwriting results. Much of this rushing has been from outside investors who have piled into an industry that quite frankly, they do not understand. (Re)insurance as a business moves forward slowly and orbits around deep risk expertise, whether technology entrepreneurs and investors like it or not. Furthermore, for some InsurTech businesses, the economies of scale model that do work in other industries, generally do not in ours. If you cannot write business profitably for a small demographic, the chances of being profitable when you cast the net even wider is even less likely. A few poster child businesses are publicly showing non-industry investors just how difficult it is to succeed in our industry if you try and do things too quickly without brakes and control mechanisms at your disposal.

It is important to note, however, that these superficial conclusions are being driven predominantly by the stark polarization of funding into InsurTechs — 71% of the $5.3 billion invested in Q4 was from 13 ‘mega-round’ deals, and the general trend to derive ‘InsurTech’ observations tends to be from those small handful of business who have gone public. Looking beyond the 2021 Q4 data alone is even more telling; since the beginning of 2012 until the end of 2021, we have observed a total of 99 mega-round deals, which has accounted for a staggering $21.878 billion of funding. To put this into perspective even further; 52% of all InsurTech investment capital is represented by 4.4% of all InsurTech deals done. Therefore, even if we only focused our attention on the InsurTechs who have raised capital (which alone would be somewhat misleading if we want to understand the ‘bigger picture’ with regards to the commercial and technological impact that many firms are having), the investment story is extremely skewed towards this relatively tiny percent of deals done that represents over half of all capital raised in this space. Those companies who raise a lot, quickly, with trajectories set towards the next raise are probably rushing for a reason.

Consequently, many of those looking at ‘InsurTech’ can often derive the wrong conclusions of what InsurTech is all about, what the businesses themselves can do, what so many of them are already doing for our industry, and the customers we serve when done right. There are a significant number of businesses who are truly pioneering huge advances in distribution (e.g., through the increased proliferation of embedded insurance), or tools that allow our industry to create quote/bind/issue functionality (through no/low code product and process toolkit builder), or improved access to relevant data (e.g., in the realm of satellite constellation businesses deriving P&C data for natural catastrophes and climate change perils, we are in an extremely revolutionary time with companies like ICEYE in our midst) and among other things, pioneering new products that the market has been crying out for (e.g., Boost’s partnership with Breach Insurance and RELM to launch the first crypto insurance product for retail wallet holders – Crypto Shield). While new technology businesses are often cash intensive as they grow, too much of our attention has been taken up by misappropriating focus on those firms who just want to grow as fast as they can towards the next liquidity event. Let us all try and focus on those businesses who should be making headlines for the right reasons. State-of-the-art policy administration systems that work well should be just as noteworthy as a unicorn status!

As we will now show, there is still a continuation of capital being invested into InsurTechs — but as fascinating as the investment numbers are, we do want to remind readers that they are one part of a very nuanced story when we consider what success, growth and the future of our industry looks like.

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