German Digital bank N26 has raised $160mn to fund their U.S expansion plans; Tencent and Allianz were lead investors in the round and it could set the stage for a future IPO according to N26 co-founder and CEO Valentin Stalf; “It's a good round to be as independent as possible,” Stalf said to TechCrunch. “This funding round really brings N26 to a pre-IPO stage. I think we see a clear path to a very sustainable company with this funding round. Maybe in the next five years there will be an IPO.”; the bank currently has eight staff members in NY and customers have been signing up on the waiting list since October 2017. Source.
The blockchain insurance consortium B3i has secured 38 members worldwide including Allianz, Swiss Re and AIG; the project would help these insurers move away from their paper based processes and secure contracts on distributed ledgers; right now blockchain is not widely used in insurance and the project is hoping to bring along the change; B3i estimates the changes could help the industry to save over 30 percent of costs. Source.
Allianz has invested in Lemonade, an insurance startup powered by artificial intelligence and behavioral economics; Solmaz Altin, chief digital officer stated: "Allianz is committed to staying at the cutting edge of insurance. We follow the insurtech space closely and globally, and have seen nothing to match Lemonade in terms of technology, user experience and business model innovation. We're thrilled to become a stakeholder in Lemonade, and will do what we can to accelerate their rapid expansion throughout the US and beyond." Source
Insurtech startup Lemonade raised $120mn led by Softbank with backing from Allianz, Sequoia Capital and Google Ventures; the company has licenses in 25 states across the US and has sold more than 80,000 policies since launch last year; “By combining big data and AI with a seamless user experience, Lemonade is truly revolutionizing the insurance industry,” said David Thevenon, a senior investment professional at SoftBank, to the Financial Times. Source.