AI insurtech Akur8 attracts €8m investment for expansion

Akur8, an insurtech focused on AI-powered pricing automation and optimisation for property & casualty and health insurance carriers, has secured €8 million in its Series A funding round.

The investment, which brings the total funding to €10 million, was led by BlackFin Capital Partners and MTech Capital.

The proceeds will be used to accelerate its international expansion throughout Europe and the US. The company is headquartered in Paris.

Akur8 has developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to automate the insurance pricing process, which it claims provides complete transparency, compared to other 'Black Box' algorithms which are hard to reverse engineer. The solution is designed to enable insurers to build risk models more than 10 times faster than the traditional manual process, reducing the pricing time to market to hours rather than weeks.

Samuel Falmagne, co-founder and CEO of Akur8, said: “When we embarked on building Akur8, we were passionate about offering a truly novel solution for the insurance industry. We are proud to have developed a product that gives carriers the ability to meet customers’ expectations for real time pricing while improving the accuracy of their risk assessment, thus significantly reducing their loss ratio. We are looking forward to continuing our growth journey and are excited to have the support of BlackFin and MTech, two leading investors in our space.”

Julien Creuzé, managing director at BlackFin Capital Partners, commented: “Akur8 has developed a highly differentiated AI-based solution for risk modelling and pricing, with tremendous value potential for the insurers who embrace it. It is a must-have product for insurers looking to stay relevant in an increasingly competitive and complex environment. We firmly believe in the team and are proud to be their partners in this round.”

Kevin McLoughlin, partner and co-founder of MTech Capital, said: “Our investment thesis is centred around backing visionary founders with the ambition to transform insurance through the use of technology. We are proud to be backing Akur8 as a unique player solving a critical issue for the entire industry.”