Vesttoo raises $15m Series B, gets MS&AD backing

Vesttoo, the insurtech that uses proprietary artificial intelligence and machine learning to help companies assess and transfer risks to the capital markets, has raised $15 million in a Series B fundraising round, that included support from MS&AD Ventures.

Getting the support of MS&AD, the holding group with global insurance and reinsurance interests, represents a strong vote of confidence in Vesttoo’s technology and its vision for digitalised and securitised insurance and reinsurance risk transfer and investment, as well as for its Insurance-Linked Program (ILP) initiative.

The fundraising round was led by Mouro Capital, which is a fintech specialist venture capital investor that has the backing of large multinational bank Banco Santander.

MS&AD Ventures, the corporate venture capital fund of Japan-based MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings, which is the fifth largest insurance conglomerate in the world, also participated in the Series B funding round for Vesttoo.

“Mouro Capital and MS&AD see the same opportunity we see: Vesttoo’s marketplace as a global deal pipeline that drives capacity directly from the capital markets to insurers, while delivering exceptional return on risk to investors by opening up this new asset class,” Yaniv Bertele, CEO of Vesttoo said.

“Their partnership is an amazing vote of confidence in us and is a signal to financial and insurance institutions that we are significantly increasing business capacity. Together, we are going to scale our ILP and fully digital marketplace.”

Vesttoo intends to put the new finding to work in driving expansion of insurance-linked program (ILP), which it aims to grow into a multi-billion venture, as well as its digital marketplace for insurance-based risk transfer and investments.

It’s only a few months since Vesttoo raised a $6 million Series A and since then the company has made a number of key hires, as it builds out its platform and its focus on making a wider variety of insurance and reinsurance risks more accessible to investors.

The insurance-linked program (ILP) is Vesttoo’s first venture into raising capital to support the transactions the company structures and through it investors will be able to make their existing high-quality assets work harder for them, while pledging them as reinsurance collateral.

Vesttoo aims to make capital market originated capacity more widely and easily available to ceding insurers or reinsurers, while connecting a global base of investors with sources of low volatility insurance risk.

“We are excited to partner with Vesttoo as they continue to innovate and bring new products, such as the ILP, to market for both insurers and the capital markets,” explained Chris Gottschalk, General Partner at Mouro Capital. “ We have been impressed with team’s ability to leverage technology to build a truly differentiated marketplace.”

Jon Soberg, Managing Partner at MS&AD Venture, added, “Our team at MS&AD Ventures is really excited about the tech-driven approach to risk transfer that Vesttoo is applying to the reinsurance market. We believe this is the future and we see huge opportunities as risks such as climate and cyber become bigger and more complex. Vesttoo has a great team and we are excited to be part of the journey with them.”