Data-driven underwriting and analytics company, Envelop Risk, has announced a Series B funding round in which it secured investments of USD 130 million led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2.
As part of the transaction, Neil Cunha-Gomes, Investor for SoftBank Investment Advisers, is set to join Envelop Risk’s board of directors.
The company says that the funds will facilitate plans to expand its proprietary machine-learning and data-driven underwriting activity in both London and Bermuda, and hopes to drive growth into new markets globally and beyond cyber insurance and reinsurance.
The proceeds from this latest funding round will be used to expand operations in cyber reinsurance and cyber technology partnerships, while Envelop Risk plans to continue to invest heavily in predictive analytics for assessing the likely economic consequences of cyber risks to commercial entities.
To combat the rise of cyber risk, the firm says that it intends to launch new solutions in adjacent areas of corporate risk over the next year.
Furthermore, this raise will establish a hybrid balance sheet model, which the company says will enable it to deploy its own risk capital in alignment with existing partners.
Envelop Risk co-founder and CEO, Jonathan Spry, commented: “We are delighted to have reached such a significant milestone in our funding journey. This transaction will allow us to continue our leadership in data-driven specialty (re)insurance underwriting and will be transformational for our business reach and activity. For the first time Envelop Risk will be able to assume positions in risk capital, which gives us greater alignment with our partners. We are all really excited to work with SoftBank Investment Advisers and together meet the huge opportunities that we see present in emerging and complex risk underwriting.”
This Series B round follows on from Envelop Risk raising USD 6 million in a Series A funding round in May of last year, which was led by AI-specialist investor Alpha Intelligence Capital.
Paul Guthrie, Co-founder and COO of Envelop, added: “We know that all companies of all sizes will eventually safeguard against increased risk through robust cyber insurance policies. Digital systems have reshaped our world, but they are also vulnerable individually, and as integrated networks. Cyber insurance plays a critical protective role. Envelop deploys capital thoughtfully into the cyber insurance ecosystem, providing assurance that mitigation resources are available immediately upon an attack, so organizations can continue to function in the face of these risks.”
Karol Niewiadomski, Senior Investor for SoftBank Investment Advisers, said: “While companies all over the world are improving their digital preparedness, the cyber threat landscape continues to evolve at a rapid rate. We believe Envelop Risk has developed a proprietary data-driven approach to meet this threat through an enhanced level of protection that directly translates to lower loss ratios. We’re pleased to partner with Envelop Risk in its journey to enable risk capital and provide much needed capacity to the nascent cyber risk market.”
Subject to shareholder approval, the transaction is expected to close in October 2021.
