Zelros attracts $11m in funding drive

The French insurtech startup Zelros closed an US$11m Series A funding round this week.

The drive was led by the Silicone Valley-based Benhamou Global Ventures (BVG) alons with ISAI Cap Venture, and Plug and Play.

The round means Zelros has raised a total of $16.5m since it was founded in 2016. The funds will be used to expand the insurtech’s presence in Europe and North America, including a branch office in Montreal, which is set to open later this year.

Zelros provides a technology service to insurers who can then better serve their clients with the support of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). Current functionalities of their platform are augmented sales and predictive claim management.

The company operates from an AI-driven platform that reviews insurance claims, quotes and underwriting data, and then makes recommendations. In 2020, it reviewed more than 20 million insurance policies that generated more than two million personalised recommendations.

The funds will also be used to further develop the platform’s AI technology offerings and services. Currently, Zelros’s business platform learns and adapts in real time to help insurers achieve a measure of automation in matching potential customers with products and services as well as underwriting policies.

AI and insurtechs

The startup promotes its AI-based software as able to ingest a variety of data, including structured customer information, claims and quotes, along with unstructured data such as voice and email communications. Earlier this month, Zelros also announced the release of its “responsible AI” standard report.

Along with large European insurers, Zelros is partnered with industry regulators on transparent AI applications. The company published the open standard for the ethical use of AI. The study predicts thousands of machine learning algorithms handling business processes ranging from sales and customer support to hiring and purchasing.

The insurtech’s AI-based software is able to analyse a wide spectrum of data, including structured customer information, claims and quotes, along with unstructured data such as voice and email communications.

The Zelros Voice2Insights feature even analyzes conversations between advisors and policyholders in real-time, enabling the insurance agent to adapt recommendations to meet the specific needs of their customers. The platform also uses machine vision tools to automatically read and create insights documents that detect potential fraud while maintaining regulatory compliance.

Paul-Henri Cahbrol ,Zelros’s director of pre-sales, customer success and partnerships, said, "Process automation will be a key trend going forward for insurers to gain trust from customers, by providing immediate answers while ideally positioning them on new distribution platforms.”