QBE Ventures Announces Second Insurtech Investment
QBE Ventures has announced its investment in Cytora, a three year old London-based startup that uses AI and open source data to help commercial insurers lower loss ratios, grow premiums and improve expense ratios. This is Cytora:
Funding aside, QBE plans to use Cytora’s Risk Engine platform that’s scheduled to be deployed next year. “The Cytora Risk Engine, driven by machine learning algorithms, combines an insurer’s internal data on a specific cover with external information from a broad spectrum of sources. This generates a risk score, which provides enhanced insight into expected claims activity on the whole portfolio and also at an individual risk level.” By ‘external information’ think: industrial fire on Pemex Oil Platform, Mexico, kidnapping in Panipat, India, and protest in Ekiti, Nigeria; to give three examples. Bottom Line: this time around Cytora raised a total of £4.4M, bringing its total funding to date to ~$8.8M.