The share of deal activity has been shifting from North America to Europe and Asia over the past five years
- North American InsurTech companies have dominated deal activity relative to other regions, capturing almost half of the InsurTech deals that were completed between 2014 and H1 2019 but, North American companies’ share of deal activity did drop from 53.9% to 44.1% during the period.
- The InsurTech landscape in North America is peppered with companies looking to provide technology-first solutions to address the legacy and bureaucracy issues associated with the Medicaid and Medicare programs in the US. Clover Health, a Google-backed InsurTech startup targeting the Medicare market, raised a $500m Series E round led by Greenoaks Capital, which is the largest InsurTech deal in 2019 to date.
- However, the share of deals has been shifting towards Europe and Asia, as Insurance companies in these regions play catch up to companies in North America, and are now recognizing the integral role of investing in digital transformation as part of a broader innovation strategy.
- The Proportion of transactions taking place in Europe increased from just over a quarter of deals in 2014 to 36.4% in the first half of 2019, with InsurTechs in Asia and Europe capturing more than half of the global deal activity in H1 2019.
Funding surged towards $2.6bn in the first six months of the year
- Investors completed 953 InsurTech deals globally between 2014 and H1 2019, with 472 (49.5%) transactions involving companies based in North America.
- InsurTech companies have raised more than $12.4bn over the past five and a half years, with investment increasing at a CAGR of 38.5% during the period, which according to Accenture, represents investors response to consumer appetite for incumbent insurance companies to engage in digital transformation.
- Of the $12.4bn that has been raised since 2014, more than half of this was invested in deals valued at $100m and above, with the average deal size increasing from $6.6m in 2014 to $18.0m in the first half of 2019.
- Funding in H1 2019 reached almost $2.6bn, across 143 deals, setting strong expectations for the rest of the year.
Larger deals propel H1 funding towards $2.6bn with more than a quarter of transactions valued above $25m
- The InsurTech landscape has shown continued signs of maturity over the past five years, with investors shifting their attention away from early-stage deals to much larger transactions.
- More than two fifths of deals in 2014 were valued below $1m, with this percentage falling by half to just 19.5% of deals in H1 2019, with big technology companies such as Alibaba and Tencent aggressively injecting capital into the InsurTech space in recent years.
- During the same period, the proportion of InsurTech deals valued above $25m grew from 8.8% of transactions to 25.7%, with almost half of the transactions in this deal size range involving companies based in Asia and Europe.
- FRIDAY, a digital car insurance provider based in Berlin, raised almost $128m from investors including SevenVentures, in what was the largest InsurTech deal across Europe and Asia in the first quarter of 2019.
Asian and European InsurTechs dominate the top 10 InsurTech deals globally in Q2 2019
- Almost $800m was invested in the top 10 InsurTech deals globally last quarter, which is equal to 77.8% of the total capital raised in the sector globally during the period, with six of the ten deals involving European and Asian InsurTech companies.
- New York-based Lemonade, a casualty insurance provider offering renter and home insurance policies powered by AI, raised a $300m Series D round led by Softbank in April. This was the largest InsurTech deal in Q2 and will enable Lemonade to accelerate its European expansion plans.
- Waterdrop (Shuidihuzhu), a Beijing-based medical and commercial insurance platform raised $144.6m in a Series C round from Boyu Capital and Tencent Holdings. This was the largest InsurTech deal in Asia in Q2, valuing Waterdrop at $1bn.
- CarePay International is an Amsterdam-based health data & payment distribution platform that has connected over 4.5m users to more than 1,200 healthcare facilities. The company raised a $44.9m Series A round to expand operations from Kenya to Nigeria and Tanzania. This funding, which was the largest InsurTech deal in Europe last quarter, came from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Investment Funds for Health in Africa.
The data for this research was taken from the FinTech Global database. More in-depth data and analytics on investments and companies across all FinTech sectors and regions around the world are available to subscribers of FinTech Global. ©2019 FinTech Global
