Israel's Vesttoo raises $15mn in Series B investment drive
The Israeli insurtech Vestoo has raised $15mn in its latest Series B funding round. The drive was led by Mouro Capital and included investment from MS&AD Ventures.
Vestoo, which is a leading global Alternative Reinsurance and Investment platform, is also backed by the corporate venture capital fund of Japan-based MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings, the fifth largest insurance conglomerate in the world.
Mouro Capital, which is backed by a leading multinational bank, is focused on investing in the future of financial services. Mouro Capital manages $400mn in assets and has invested in companies such as iZettle (acquired by PayPal), Kabbage (acquired by American Express), Creditas, Curve, Ripple, Tradeshift, Trulioo and Upgrade.
Growth strategy for Vesttoo
The Series B round comes just three months after Hanaco Ventures led the company's Series A round, and will drive expansion of Vesttoo's Insurance-Linked Program (ILP) offering, an innovative security-based investment portfolio, as well as the world's first fully digital marketplace for insurance-based risk transfer and investments.
Both elements are integral to Vesttoo's business strategy, aimed at bridging the funding gap in the reinsurance market.
Vesttoo’s portfolio specialises in fully collateralised Life and P&C reinsurance transactions. The ILP programme will enable investors to pledge existing securities as collateral in these transactions, earning additional spreads over current yields (long-term, structured alpha), without increasing their risk profile.
Vesttoo's marketplace is the first of its kind in the market, and provides insurers with access to capital market originated capacity. Investors, on the other hand, benefit from direct access to a new asset class consisting of low volatility insurance risks and attractive risk reward.
Speaking about the capital funding drive, Vesttoo CEO Yaniv Bertele said, "Mouro Capital and MS&AD see the same opportunity we see: Vesttoo as a global deal pipeline. Mouro Capital and MS&AD see the same opportunity we see: Vesttoo's marketplace as a global deal pipeline that drives capacity directly from the capital markets to insurers, while delivering exceptional return on risk to investors by opening up this new asset class."
He continued, "Their partnership is an amazing vote of confidence in us and is a signal to financial and insurance institutions that we are significantly increasing business capacity. Together, we are going to scale our ILP and fully digital marketplace."
Jon Soberg, Managing Partner at MS&AD Ventures, said "Our team at MS&AD Ventures is really excited about the tech-driven approach to risk transfer that Vesttoo is applying to the reinsurance market.”
He added. “We believe this is the future and we see huge opportunities as risks such as climate and cyber become bigger and more complex. Vesttoo has a great team and we are excited to be part of the journey with them."
