Homelyfe, a new type of insurance company using technology to make buying and managing insurance easier for consumers, has raised GBP2.4 million in a super seed round led by Talis Capital and Peterson Ventures.
The investment follows Homelyfe’s launch earlier in October, offering the first policy – Home Buyer’s Insurance, in response to the fact that one-in-10 people looking to buy a home in the next two years will get gazumped.
Homelyfe will add multiple general insurance lines over the coming year, starting with Home Insurance in early 2018, and will ultimately allow consumers to manage all of their insurance requirements within one easy-to-use app, available on The App Store andGoogle Play. The investment will go towards further technical development as the company pursues this aggressive product roadmap. It will also go towards building out the Homelyfe team in key areas including customer success and data management as the product expands in functionality, the customer base increases and the company grows.
“At Talis, we believe in combining cutting edge technology with conventional business, and Homelyfe’s modern and consumer-centric approach to insurance fits perfectly with that ideal,” says Vasile Foca, Managing Partner of Talis Capital. “Insurtech is an area we continue to monitor closely, especially as it’s a sector experiencing monumental shifts in technology. Peter and his team have built an extremely scalable solution, and we’re delighted to back a company that promises to change the attitudes and experience of the insurance industry.”
“When we invest, we’re on the lookout for outstanding entrepreneurs to back. The Homelyfe team has an impressive track record that is supported by a compelling business idea, which addresses a notable gap in a market that is ripe for disruption and improvement,” saysRandall Lloyd, of Peterson Ventures.
Homelyfe was founded by Peter Goodman and Andrew Craven, serial entrepreneurs who have established a number of startups, most notably Brighter Option (now Social.com) – the world’s largest Facebook management platform, which was sold to Buddy Media and subsequently Salesforce in 2012. They launched Homelyfe with the aim of making insurance easier for customers through clever use of technology that makes the process more intuitive, less jargon heavy, and consolidates data to reduce the question sets consumers have to go through to apply for each policy. Within the Homelyfe app, consumers can do everything from getting quotes and purchasing, to managing and renewing multiple insurance policies and even initiating a claim.
“Our vision for Homelyfe is to build an insurance solution around the needs of the modern consumer,” says CEO and co-founder of Homelyfe, Peter Goodman. “The insurance industry has seriously fallen down on customer centricity, not interacting with people on the technology they want to use, or with the solutions they expect and not being wholly transparent around pricing. Homelyfe is giving the insurance industry a much-needed update; making insurance simpler to help consumers get the right policy, at the right price, 24/7.”
