RISK MANAGEMENT
Aquiline Capital Partners | November 01, 2021
Ripe Thinking Limited ("Ripe"), a UK-based digital underwriting and insurance distribution platform, is pleased to announce that it has entered into a definitive agreement for Aquiline Capital Partners LLC ("Aquiline") to acquire a majority stake in the company. Aquiline is a private investment firm based in New York and London with $6.9 billion in assets under management, specialising in investments at the intersection of technology and finance. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Since its founding in 1997, Ripe has grown rapidly serving a variety of customers across both personal and small commercial lines. Today, Ripe is a leading insurtech business with more than 280,000 policyholders, protecting their specialised needs across golf, boats, caravans, and cycles, as well as providing insurance to small business owners such as personal trainers, musicians, and photographers. Ripe's proprietary technology enables customers to "build their own policy", providing tailored solutions in an optimised online journey. Its first-class customer service and innovation in insurtech have seen the business win multiple industry awards and achieve continuous and impressive growth. Over the past 12 months, it saw revenue grow by 27 percent.
Following this investment, Aquiline will work closely with the company's management team to continue and accelerate the build of a market-leading digital insurance distribution platform. Ripe's management team will continue to be led by CEO Paul Williams and Founder & Managing Director John Woosey, who will retain a significant equity stake, and Marketing Director Sarah Jones.
"The way people buy insurance is changing. As more individuals turn to online platforms to purchase insurance, Ripe offers a simple process for buying policies online while still ensuring quality coverage at a good value. We believe that John, Paul, and their team have built a high-quality and scalable digital platform that can identify customer demands, and design and distribute products to address these efficiently. We are excited to partner with them through the next phase of their journey."
- Jeff Greenberg, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aquiline
"We are excited to partner with Aquiline, whose deep understanding of the UK and global insurance markets, and their track record of supporting technology-enabled businesses will allow us to further develop our offerings to our customers and continue to build out our underwriting and distribution capabilities. This partnership is a testament to the work of our incredible team who have delivered our strong and consistent growth year after year. The investment will allow us to accelerate our ambitions for international growth while still effectively and efficiently serving our customers across the UK."
- John Woosey, Founder and Managing Director of Ripe
Closing of the investment is subject to parties obtaining relevant regulatory approval.
Houlihan Lokey provided corporate finance advice and Norton Rose Fulbright provided legal advice to Aquiline. Due diligence was performed by Deloitte (financial, tax and regulatory) and Crosslake Technologies (technology).
Keefe Bruyette & Woods provided corporate finance advice and Ernst & Young provided legal advice to Ripe. Vendor due diligence was performed by Oliver Wyman (commercial) and KPMG (financial, tax, technology, operations and regulatory).
About Ripe
Ripe is one of the UK's largest specialist insurtech companies and brings together a rare mix of insurance, digital marketing and tech expertise. It creates ultra-targeted insurance products, where customers choose what they need rather than being forced to take out a pre-bundled policy. All of its products are growing and include Golf Care, Cycleplan, Insure4Boats, Insure4Sport and Ripe Caravans. Multi-award winning, Ripe won the Insurance Times Personal Lines Broker of the Year award in both 2019 and 2020 and has recently been named in the top 100 fastest growing UK tech companies in the North.
About Aquiline Capital Partners
Aquiline Capital Partners, founded in 2005, is a private investment firm based in New York and London investing in companies across financial services and technology, business services, and healthcare industries. The firm had $6.9 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2021.
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Business Wire | September 10, 2020
Majesco, a global leader of cloud insurance software solutions for insurance business transformation, and KPMG LLP, the audit, tax and advisory firm, are working together to accelerate insurance digital transformation using Majesco Digital1st® Insurance platform. Digital1st® is the insurance industry’s leading cloud-native, microservices-based digital experience platform with a low code / no code configurability and a robust API and partner ecosystem apps. Combined with Majesco’s industry leading CloudInsurer®, core insurance platform, provides insurers with an unparalleled end-to-end capability enabling insurers to become more connected with their clients, agents and brokers.
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INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY
BOXX Insurance | October 19, 2021
BOXX Insurance, the Toronto-based fast-growing cyber insurtech, is pleased to announce a new partnership with security consulting firm Asceris.
The partnership was confirmed at the recent NetDilligence Cyber Risk Summit in Santa Monica, and follows BOXX's announcements that it closed its Series A financing round and is expanding to the US.
Under BOXX's Hackbusters banner, the Asceris partnership will add to BOXX's incident response capabilities. BOXX's new service with Asceris includes 24/7 incident response and new services that have been customized for BOXX's consumer and employee benefit clients. With this partnership, Asceris will provide BOXX clients with a seamless escalation from suspected incident to full Incident Response and Forensics support.
"Too often, we see individuals and families struggle to know how to stay ahead of threats, really panic in the event of an incident and then suffer the ignominy of being severely out of pocket. BOXX solves all three problems in one integrated product."
- Vishal Kundi, CEO & Co-founder of BOXX
The collaboration with Asceris will fuel BOXX's mission to become a leader in personal cyber insurance. It follows BOXX's global partnership with Consumer Privacy and Security specialist AURA. "By leveraging such partnerships, BOXX is able to craft meaningful propositions for consumers and boost their confidence to avail of all the good things digital can provide," Kundi said
"Consumers continue to struggle to know how to address cyber risk. The threats are constantly evolving, so in addition to being more secure and better prepared, consumers need to have timely access to the right expertise in case the worst happens. BOXX delivers on all of these requirements. Their innovative business model combined with their global reach provides them with an exceptional ability to strengthen cyber defenses and reduce the impact of cyber events. Asceris is excited to work with BOXX and we look forward to a long relationship and the opportunities this partnership brings."
- Anthony Hess, CEO at Asceris and former executive at CFC Underwriting and the Big 4 consulting firm KPMG
About BOXX Insurance
BOXX Insurance Inc. helps businesses, individuals and families insure and defend against cyber threats. BOXX Insurance Inc. is privately-held with headquarters in Toronto, Canada
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