One of last week’s most clicked links in the newsletter was a story on the shutdown of Australian corporate VC unit AMP New Ventures. This week, the founder of an AMP-backed fintech company warned:
“If you are going down the path of a corporate investor, you need to ask the question of where their interests really lie, why they are entering the space and what their corporate objectives are, so that you can go in with your eyes open.”
Much ink has been spilled on merits and flaws of corporate investing in startups. One perspective we’ve heard particularly great feedback on was this presentation at our recent Innovation Summit from Mark Suster of Upfront Ventures. In it, Suster highlights his top ten tips if he were designing a corporate VC program. We detail the latest investments by (re)insurers each week at the bottom of this email.
Risk units and sensor data
Allstate (NYSE: ALL) announced its latest earnings results today (its earnings call highlighted some interesting comments on the tech-driven agency owner of the next 10 to 15 years).
Separately, we took a look at Allstate’s patent applications over the last five years highlighting frequent key phrases and topics of focus. Perhaps the most offbeat (ungranted) filing? A 2014 patent titled, “Food delivery services and insurance systems.”
On that front
A number of venture capital-backed startups have taken the managing general agent approach to insurance distribution. We’ve highlighted a number of partnerships in this regard. Earlier this week, our tracker picked up a new arrangement between fronting provider State National (NASDAQ: SNC) and NY-based P&C insurance tech startup Jetty, which is backed by investors including Ribbit Capital and Box Group.
Now getting into the insurance tech space, State National CEO Terry Ledbetter last year commented: “Our industry has been transformed by new structures and platforms, which are beginning to compress the value chain between risk and capital.”
Mark your calendar
Hear from Oscar CEO Mario Schlosser, Metromile CEO Dan Preston, XL Innovate’s Tom Hutton and more at our Future of Fintech conference in June. Tickets are available here and newsletter readers can get $1k off by using the code FutureInsurance 17.
