Disclaimer All research on startup and the whole investment memo has been done for personal use of Akim Arhipov.
General overview
Insly have two business units:
- Insly SaaS - SaaS for MGAs and Insurers. A Full Stack Insurance software with no-code product builder. Operational in many geos worldwide. The team of Insly is fulfilling the order they receive on the platform.
- Broker Platform - Digital distribution network of €250m GWP in Poland, Estonian and Latvian broker channels. Currently, the biggest operational market is Poland (and Latvia + Estonia). However, operations do not go further than this just yet. The broker platform is not about selling soft but creating marketplace solution for brokers and customers.
Problem
Insly SaaS:
- Insurance companies often struggle with the software part of their business.
- Codes are a mess and too tangled to be efficient
- Clients are receiving unpleasant service due to reasons brought up above
Brokerage:
- Brokers face issues when quoting their clients due to the lack of an all-in-one source. Quoting requires several tools, is time-consuming and flow is complex.
- Administration and maintaining the client is also complex, as it, also, requires several tools and different communication lines.
- Finally, there is a need for integrating all the needed services “under one roof” so Sales, Quotes, Polices, Docs, Payments, Billing, etc. can be managed from one tool.
Solution
- Insly SaaS - SaaS for MGAs and Insurers. A Full Stack Insurance software with no-code product builder. The team of Insly is acting according to the needs of its client's orders. No-code builder still requires a team of Insly to build out the solution, but as it is modular, its quick and efficient. The product can be built as one solution, so every insurer or MGA can operate their business in an efficient matter. Among other things, Insly can cover the needs for Sales, Quotes, Policies, Docs, etc.
- Broker Platform - Digital distribution network of €250m GWP in Poland, Estonian and Latvian broker channel. Platform/marketplace, which aggregates possible insurance solutions within the market and allows brokers to improve and scale their businesses.
Target audience:
- Insly SaaS - SaaS for MGAs and Insurers
- Insurance companies
- MGAs
- Broker Platform - Digital distribution network
- Insurance companies
- Insurance brokers
Marketing
- Insly SaaS - SaaS for MGAs and Insurers
- Content marketing and PR has been one of the vital marketing ways. Resulting in 9 demos / 0.5 new customers by the data from Q4 2021 and Q12022. (mix of content and paid social media campaigns)
- Inbound lead generation is the other CA method. The growth team focuses on acquiring top of the funnel leads through a mix of online (paid search, SM, etc) and offline channels (events and sponsorships). The aim is to acquire 20 new customers from 130 demos.
- Referral and upsell is the third CA method. 2 new customers will come from existing client referrals. Insly is incentivising it.
- Sales Development Reps (SDR)Â outreach is the final way of CA.
Aim would be to secure 26 new customers within next 12 month.
CAC: €15k
LTV: €240k
LTV:CAC: 16
- Broker Platform - Digital distribution network
- Content marketing and PR play a crucial part in CA for the broker platform as well. Trust is the key; work is done towards this.
- Exclusive deals with insurers are the second method of the CA. When Insly lands an exclusive deal on its platform, stats show # That users grow considerably.
- References it the third method being used. A great product is a great sales channel. Brokers are a community where info moves fast.
CAC: €988
*LTV: €6400
LTV:CAC: 6,4
*this is the data for today but it is steadily on the rise
Economy
Income statement:
Sales Forecast:
ProductÂ
The product is ready, is in use and scaling. As things stand, over 1000 customers are using the product. You can find a segmented number of users upon request. It is worth mentioning that Brokerage has the majority of the users, but this is logical as it is a marketplace.
Business model for Insly SaaS - SaaS for MGAs and Insurers:
SaaS model with €3k monthly payments + 0,5% of *GWP.
*Gross Written Premium (GWP) — the total premium (direct and assumed) written by an insurer before deductions for reinsurance and ceding commissions. Includes additional and/or return premiums. Written does not imply collected, but the gross policy premium to be collected as of the issue date of the policy, regardless of the payment plan.
Business model for Broker Platform:
SaaS 130€ per broker + Distribution fee, 2% from the GWP.
Target Market size:
Insly SaaS - SaaS for MGAs and Insurers:
- Broker Platform - Digital distribution network:
Future roadmap:
- Insly SaaS - SaaS for MGAs and Insurers:
Broker Platform - Digital distribution network:
As in the SaaS part, scaling is the key. The current situation shows that all the competitors have been unable to scale geographically. Insly's idea is to consolidate the market and build the most extensive broker distribution network by 2027.
Targets from here on
From here it is all about scaling for both parts of the product.
The next milestones would be:
for Insly SaaS - SaaS for MGAs and Insurers
- Reaching 30m+ ARR
- New Product Modules
- Launch the US market
and for Broker Platform - Digital distribution network
- Add the volume of brokers
- Consolidate European broker platform market
- Increase LTV
Also: Strengthening the business with executive and ops roles. Chairman could be added onboard after the round
Validations
Launched in: 21.06.2014 - registered the LTD (you can check the legal structure at the beginning of this report.
Number of employees: 90+
Paying customers: 1000+
MRR: €227k
Traction: Fully operating and scaling business
Clients: Since Insly has a lot of nice case-studies, easiest way to get up to speed regarding this is HERE
Investments so far
Stage: (late) Seed;
Investors so far: check the screenshot below
It is also important to notice that one of leading insurer in Baltic States has been a client of Insly. and they financed the development of new features. Company could save on equity through this.
Amount raised until today: 6m €
Cap Table: Full table available upon the request
Team
Risto Rossar / (keeping Risto is at 24.8% and the whole team is at 42.5%)
Risto Rossar, Founder & CEO -Â 20 years in Insurance, have founded 5 INSTech startups with first online Insurance broker -IIZI
Amazing team:
Competitors
- Insly SaaS - SaaS for MGAs and Insurers:
Country: US / Raised: 93.9 M USD to date / Product: Socotra is a technology platform that builds a modern cloud-based platform for technology-driven insurers / Customers: Undisclosed / Growth: Undisclosed
Country: UK / Raised: 29,8 M USD to date / Product: SSP is a provider of technology systems and solutions for the insurance industry / Customers: Undisclosed / Growth: Undisclosed
Country: UK / Raised: 28,1 M USD to date / Product: Instanda is a SaaS insurance software platform that allows insurance companies to build, configure, and launch products online / Customers: Undisclosed / Growth: Undisclosed
Country: IL / Raised: 88,3 M USD / Product: Sapiens International Corporation is a leading global provider of software solutions for the insurance industry / Customers: Undisclosed / Growth: Undisclosed
- Broker Platform - Digital distribution network:
Country: BE / Raised: 4,4 M USD / Product: WeGroup is a Belgian InsurTech startup that helps insurance providers all over the world to better connect with their digital customers / Customers: Undisclosed / Growth: Undisclosed
Country: DE / Raised: NDA / Product: Softfair is an IT solutions provider for broker pools, distributors, brokers, and insurance companies. / Customers: Undisclosed / Growth: Undisclosed
Country: DE / Raised: NDA / Product: blau direkt provides Infrastructure, revolutionary technology and Touchpoint management service to startups, large companies and SME's / Customers: Undisclosed / Growth: Undisclosed
Reference
Kjartan Rist - kjartan@concentric.vc:
- Insurance is not transparent. Greater adoption is happening across the value chain. Concentric invested in 3 insurtech companies.
- Risto - resilient, finding solutions, had been successful in insurance before.
- Two units:
- SaaS - not enough invested into the commercial side, too much customization required in first two years. Nowadays, no-code self-service - ongoing scale-up.
- Broker platform - 250M EUR flow, - they are responsible for 15% for all. Take care is small - get better deals or partner with MGA (Managing General Agent / create their own MGA. Potential to recreate the model in other markets. The broker unit takes some parts of the SaaS unit.
- Supportive shareholders. The core team has been together for a long time (probably underpaid and super loyal to Risto).
- M&A opportunities: two business units run separately. Too early to sell based on the Kjartan opinion. SaaS: 10-15M EUR on SaaS business needs to be achieved to make it interesting to sell (with X10 multiple).6. Strengthening the business with executive and ops roles. Chairman could be added onboard after the round. 8. Valuation 30M, raising up to 1M EUR. 9. Communication with Risto: turnaround time is extremely quick, understand the niche.
- Talent network is not strong. There will be high competition for talent in the niche.
Alex Royce - alex.royce@accelerate-underwriting.com::
- They started at 2015 working together with Insly team.
- Over the last 5 months, the data analytics - they paid 100K per year to use the analytics module to other provider, now they get it as a standard package from Insly.
- Main advantage of the new platform for them - they can add anything they can with new Insly no-code platform - rather to explain to Insly engineers, they can do it in-house - reach solution faster, get in control, less people in communication chain, less development cost.
Example: They have 1 product with 8 subproducts. They did not want to allow to order those subproducts one by one. Now, they just drag/dropped the order button, restructured the flow with no-code, groomed and it’s done. Instead of 5-10 development hours, they spent 1 hour - no IT background needed. The process is much more efficient if we compare with old Insly version of system.
- UK software houses - thousands brokers already connected to those platforms, distribution is already there for you. However, Insly is much cheaper, and the main reason - the service you get from their team. Big UK software houses don’t have resources to support you - time consuming. So Insly is better for those brokers who appreciate the flexibility and want to spend less. UK systems charge more than Insly - they did big analysis on UK market (interviews with software houses).
- Migration - it’s easy to move from Insly. However, no savings from moving to other system, because we save more on development hours using Insly.
- What to improve? “Communication should be better, it’s never been a disaster, but keeping us where we are on the project and offer solutions, but not only solve what we asked them. Feels that Insly could proactively update on what they do. Sometimes they lost on the details.”
Round information
General Ask: 1m €
Commitments so far: €400K committed equity investment with from UNIQA Ventures, Risto Rossar, Kalev Tanner and some smaller investors and some smaller investors (team has recently started the communication with investors)
Valuation: €30M Pre-Money
Maturity date: TBD
Pitch Deck: