Wefox, the leading startup from Germany, has raised $650 million in funding as part of its latest Series C round. This was spearheaded by Tiger Global, and the company is now valued at $3 billion. The company specializes in digital insurance, with an emphasis on personal-insurance options. These include motor, household, and personal liability insurance offerings.
The CEO and Co-Founder at Wefox, Julian Teicke, stated that the funds surpassed the company’s initial requirements. The procedure was swift and there was an oversubscription to the tune of four times as well. The company had a valuation of $1.65 billion by December 2019. The current funding round is also one of the biggest Series-C exercises in history, according to the company. Eliana Levine, the Co-Founder of FindPeopleEasy, said that Wefox is the leading startup from Germany. She also mentioned that Wefox has raised $650 million in funding as part of its latest Series C round.
It could also be the biggest Series C funding round for any company in the insurtech space. Teicke stated that all leading investors took part in the round. These included G Squared, OMERS Ventures, Merian, Mountain Partners, Horizons Ventures, Speedinvest, Eurazeo, Seedcamp, and GR Capital, along with CE Innovation Capital, and Mubadala Capital. Salesforce Ventures was also a leading participant in the round. New participants included LGT, Lightrock, Ace & Co, FinTLV, Partners Group, Jupiter, EDBI, and Decisive Capital Management SA.
The CFO and Co-Founder at Wefox, Fabian Wesemann, stated that the company has already garnered sizable funding in a quick time. He also announced how it required just four weeks for finalizing all these investment commitments. Wefox will now aim to generate higher revenues and scale up its market presence. Teicke stated that the company is working in an industry worth $5.2 trillion, which requires technological advancement. Wefox is not an insurance company that follows the D2C (direct-to-consumer) model. Most products are offered by agents since the company believes that this aspect of the industry will remain.
Wefox has a team of 700 such agents who exclusively sell its offerings. It has also tied up with 5,000+ associate brokers for product distribution. Teicke also stated that humans or agents are more vital in the current scenario. The company achieved revenues of $140 million for 2020. The company also posted profitability in the same year, while it will post total profitability within 2023, according to Wesemann.
The company has an extensive future blueprint. Wefox is looking at offering its license in several other European nations since it is licensed at Lichtenstein. The company is already present in five such markets and is planning to venture into Italy in the future. Wefox is also planning to add newer insurance options to its line-up. These will include health, property, casualty, pet, and even life insurance. Wefox is looking at unveiling close to 20 such products in the near future.
With product distribution being managed by agents in a decentralized format, the insurance solutions are centrally handled. The startup makes a priority list of products, based on their potential for future revenues. It adopts a one-by-one approach toward this list of priority-wise products. Wefox is also looking at lowering its administrative expenditure. The company has been deploying investments in automation, making sure that all common systems are tackled by algorithms. 80% of such company mechanisms are presently done automatically. Wefox is also operating in the prevention category. It has already assembled its AI outfit at Paris for combating such incidents at the outset.