Our July news roundup starts with exciting news from SingLife With Aviva. The insurer announced the launch of a cross-industry collaboration, A Better Odyssey, which will help promising start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore to digitalise and scale their operations. This reminded us a little of ZA Tech’s Asia Fintech Center (AFC), which looks at specific use-cases in insurance and financial services in collaboration with industry partners and is also based in Singapore.
Adding to the theme of collaboration to innovate, Income’s inaugural 3-day FutureX Hackathon challenged tertiary students in Southeast Asia to create value for consumers in insurance using blockchain technology. The event was supported by Plug and Play APAC and Amazon Web Services (AWS) and aimed to seek solutions to embed blockchain in insurance innovation, including applications in new insurance business models, which Income hopes to bring to markets overseas via their Insurance-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform, HIVE by Income.
And we have more news coming out of Singapore, Fermion takes a stake in Insurtech Ancileo to help insurers improve and modernize their models of insurance distribution, as well as forge the way towards a global insurance ecosystem in travel and banking. Fermion seems to be positioning itself as an ecosystem of services for insurers. Claims expert Merimen is part of this ecosystem as well.
Australian InsurTech Cover Genius, acquires US-based Booking Protect. With the acquisition, Cover Genius expands its presence in the ticketing and Live Entertainment market by enabling ticketing platforms, small-to-mid-sized ticket sellers, events and venues and Booking Protect’s 350+ partners, the ability to offer embedded ticket protection worldwide through XCover.
InsurTech funding was hot as well in July. Insurtech Gateway has secured Seed Fund II financing which it says will support 20 startup teams over the next four years, from pre-seed to Series A and Sydney-based startup Upcover has raised $4.7m. In Indonesia, Rey Assurance announces US$4.2M seed round and in Thailand, FairDee is in the news with a US$65m. Series B funding round. Surprised by the news? Maybe it’s because it’s actually Qoala’s funding round from May 2022. The Indonesian InsurTech had acquired FairDee last year. A great reminder to not be blinded by all the InsurTech buzz but to check the facts.
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