(Startup graduates at the Hartford InsurTech Demo Day. Source: Hartford InsurTech.)
Yesterday Hartford InsurTech Hub, powered by Startupbootcamp, hosted its second Demo Day, themed “Amplified,” at the Bushnell Performing Arts Center in Hartford, Conn. Out of 10 startups graduating from the cohort, three have already secured pilots with leading insurance companies within the Hub’s core sponsoring partners: Aetna, Capgemini, Cigna, Clyde & Co, The Hartford, Travelers, USAA and White Mountains. The event was participated in by over 500 attendees on site and over 600 viewers via livestream.
Sabine VanderLinden, CEO, Startupbootcamp InsurTech.
The 10 startups presented solutions designed to bring innovation to health, life, and property/casualty insurance companies, with propositions ranging from improving customer engagement to streamlining the property/casualty claims process to enhancing digital health capabilities.
Global Origins
Each startup relocated to Hartford for the three-month accelerator program. Three of the startups are from the United States, while the remaining seven have relocated from countries such as Australia, Switzerland, South Africa, Israel, and Canada.
Hartford InsurTech Hub reports that as well as securing corporate partners, the startups have been engaged with local Hartford and Connecticut communities. All the startups in the cohort have hired students from the University of Connecticut and the University of Hartford as interns throughout the program. Both universities have established a joint InsurTech course as a result of the Hartford Insurtech Hub’s program and these interns are participating in the course.
“InsurTech is emerging as a category of its own right with over $20Bn of investment received by startups serving the sector since 2015,” commented Sabine VanderLinden, CEO of Startupbootcamp InsurTech and partner at Rainmaking. “While we are at the very beginning of our journey identifying those disruptive innovations that will affect the insurance sector forever we need to be mindful that to do so we need to create innovation centers and hubs that welcome unique innovative minds, talent, and expertise. Let’s build Hartford as a global InsurTech capital where young ventures directly engage with the rich local ecosystem of insurers, adjacent market players, new entrants, local communities, city representatives, the governor, and the regulator to create differentiated capabilities that leverage Connecticut and Hartford’s strengths.”
Dawn LeBlanc, Managing Director, Hartford InsurTech Hub.
Amplified Pace in New Insurance Technology and Ideas
“We are seeing an amplified pace in new technology and ideas in the insurance industry globally,” noted Dawn LeBlanc, Managing Director, Hartford InsurTech Hub. “Innovation is accelerating and our program partners understand the importance of integrating many innovation methods into their business models and staying connected. Startups involved in the program have the opportunity to engage with our strong insurance ecosystem that includes a deep investor network, broad mentor group and robust program content. Startupbootcamp’s global network and name recognition attract the newest and brightest startups to the Hartford InsurTech Hub. As a program, we help identify trends and make the most relevant connections while growing the insurance ecosystem.”
Hartford InsurTech Hub identified the 10 Demo Day teams as follows:
Pineapple: Pineapple offers a fair, transparent, and affinity-based P2P insurance and they come to Hartford from South Africa.
handdii: Coming from Australia, handdii is a digital platform that automates the property insurance claim process from FNOL through to claim finalization.
Dream Payments: Dream Payments is a Fintech startup from Canada that powers digital and mobile payment services for business customers.
Anant Tailor, CCO of DreamPayments presenting at the Hartford InsurTech Hub Demo Day. Source: Hartford InsurTech Hub.
Pitch Gauge: Pitch Gauge, from Georgia, is a roofing estimating application using mobile devices to do property inspections.
Medyear: From San Francisco, is a social network for healthcare collaboration. They connect consumers to over 190 health systems and 700k doctors to real-time chat, secure email, microblogging, and personal health records.
SkyWatch: SkyWatch is a licensed insurance broker in all 50 US states offering a holistic software for on-demand risk-aware solutions for connected, moving platforms. They’re from Israel.
Talem Health Analytics: Coming from Canada, Talem Health Analytics provides data-driven insights on bodily injury claims cost.
See Your Box: Coming from Switzerland, See Your Box provides Industrial IoT tools to digitize supply chains. They are a tech-service platform that collects, analyses and extracts information related to goods across all steps of the supply chain.
ClaimSpace: Coming from Australia, ClaimSpace is a platform that bridges the communication gap between customers, insurers, and stakeholders during the claims process.
CareValidate: Powered by a life-saving light bulb called SafeLight, CareValidate provides health, safety, and quality of care telematics to transform workers’ compensation, senior living, long-term care, life, and health insurance products with plug-and-play insurtech solutions. They’re from Georgia.
Michelle Cote, Managing Director for Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.
“It has been gratifying to see Startupbootcamp continue to catalyze the growth of Hartford’s InsurTech community over the past year with its second cohort of the accelerator, commented Michelle Cote, Managing Director for Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. “Once again, incredible technology companies from around the world have come to our city to learn how to build new products and capabilities that will create value, and potentially transform for the US insurance industry. These visionary entrepreneurs are providing new inspiration to our partners, and the community at large. Hartford’s reputation as a significant center of InsurTech activity has certainly been amplified over the past year, and we look forward to even more innovation activity here in the year ahead.”
Alex Farcet, co-founder of Startupbootcamp and Head of the Hartford Digital Health Accelerator Program.
“We are very proud of Hartford InsurTech Hub and we’re excited to embark on our next journey with building on the digital health ecosystem,” commented Alex Farcet, co-founder of Startupbootcamp and head of the Hartford Digital Health Accelerator Program. “With our partners Hartford Healthcare, CT Next, Trinity College and UCONN, together we are building Hartford into a hub for innovation and technology. We can’t wait to scout the US and the world to bring more of the very best startups that are disrupting both the InsurTech and healthcare industry.”
Hartford InsurTech Hub expressed gratitude for the support of its Demo Day sponsors: Drinker, Biddle & Reath LLP, Insurbot, Updike, Kelly & Spellacy, P.C. and Grant Thornton. “Without their unwavering support, we would not have been able to create such a successful event,” a statement from the organization said.
Global Insurance Accelerator Announces 2019 InsurTech Cohort