Insuring Europe’s small businesses: Our Investment in Insify

Few fintech markets are as large and yet as painful for customers as insurance. This is particularly true for small businesses, an audience traditionally underserved by legacy insurers compared to their large enterprise counterparts. Entrepreneurs face months of form filling, calls, meetings, high rejection rates and, if they’re successful in getting covered, high fees and policies based on point-in-time surveys about their business which soon fail to provide appropriate protection. 

In Europe, small businesses are the engine of economic growth, with Europe’s 25 million small businesses accounting for more than 50% of GDP and creating 85% of new jobs. These businesses currently spend close to $70B on commercial insurance premiums each year - and this is before considering the significant coverage gaps and underinsurance resulting from today’s painful purchasing journeys. Moreover, entrepreneurs need more than just commercial insurance and also search for insurance to protect against life and health risks such as long-term disability. It’s simply not possible to serve this heterogeneous market effectively via manual processes, traditional in-person brokers and outdated channels. A new approach is needed, as we discussed in our recent Prepared Mind. 

Enter Insify. Founded by Koen Thijssen in the Netherlands, Insify is a fully digital, data-driven and embedded provider of small business insurance which meets the demands of today’s entrepreneurs. Koen experienced the pains of insurance firsthand after founding and building his previous company, Bloomon (acquired by Bloom & Wild last year) and he set out to create a better offering for small businesses. An outstanding core team from SumUp, Rocket Internet, Aegon, NXP and more has joined him on his mission.

Insify has made rapid progress during its first year and already protects more than 1,500 businesses with its proprietary, continuous insurance offerings backed by Munich Re. Insify meets customers wherever they are: whether that’s via seamless online sign up that provides entrepreneurs with insurance in under two minutes, via insurance brokers who partner with Insify to offer a simpler solution for small business clients, or via embedded insurance partnerships with leading online platforms such as bol.com where Insify provides insurance for marketplace e-commerce sellers. Having launched in the Netherlands, Insify has an aggressive expansion roadmap for serving entrepreneurs all across Europe.

Our Series A partnership with Insify builds on a long series of Accel investments in pioneering insurance companies including Acko, Check24, Ethos, Luko, Shift and The Zebra. We look forward to supporting Koen and the Insify team as they introduce a new generation of business protection across Europe! 

–– Luca and Will