UK startups Marshmallow For years, auto insurance policies have been established for immigrants and other consumers who have been neglected or priced from traditional insurance through innovations in data science. Marshmallows has now earned $1 million insured for drivers and $500 million in profitable annual revenue run rate, and has raised a new $90 million to expand.
Marshmallow plans to use the money to enter financial services, as well as more insurance products, hoping these people will attract a group of people, despite the shocking impact of Brexit. Growing.
“We think immigration is a huge opportunity,” CEO Oliver Kent-Braham said in an interview. He noted that in the UK, far more people coming out of the workforce than incoming, with 1.2 million immigrants recorded in 2024 alone. “We need to migrate to get more people to work and we want to help people move and integrate into the UK”
Marshmallow believes the integration can drive its own insurance vehicle and will soon be the startup hopes to buy home insurance and take out a loan.
Kent-Braham said Marshmallow plans to launch its first loan product later this year, which may require adaptation to life on its way to all new arrivals to finance and insurance in the UK.
According to Kent-Braham, the round was distributed about 5-50 between equity and debt, and was valued only over $2 billion. Marshmallows finally raised $1.25 billion in funding to put it in the background 2021.
At that time, the startup had a lot of growth in its business. In 2021, Marshmallows have only 100,000 people insured. Now, in cities like London, the number of the 1 million insurers is enhanced by pink outdoor advertising campaigns, which is hard to miss.
Portage Capital is leading the round with BlackRock and Lake Columbia partners involved. Previous supporters of the company include Passion Capital, Investec and Scor. Marshmallow has raised about $220 million to date.
It is worth noting that the new round is at least JanuaryKent-Braham noted that part of the equity is convertible debt cashed in 2023.
Marshmallow’s funding is in a complex moment for European insurance startups.
On the one hand, there is a grim story about Wayfox.
Wefox’s valuation rose to a leap with SoftBank, Omers, Salesforce and dozens of other support $4.5 billion By 2023. Just two years later, after years of losses and complications of broker/broker-based business models, Wefox is in trouble. The company has Part of the sale of the business And pick it up Lifeline financing arrive Stay floating.
However, signs of insurtech startups building more sustainable businesses are also more obvious. Those who can prove a strong tech story are attracting investors’ attention.
Just last week, Omino – A new startup in Poland (a new startup) has gained a major strategic investor who invested $10 million and has a valuation of more than $200 million. This is the first time Aminimo has raised funds since it was profitable when it was booting. Like Marshmallow, the startup started with auto insurance and is rethinking actuarial formulas and leveraging AI to bring new infringements into risk predictions.
While data science and AI quickly became table bets for insurance startups, other details about marshmallows set it apart, and there are even some bigger competitors (e.g., the big retailer Tesco, which hurts prices).
How Marshmallows approaches the inclusive and diversity ideas of its target customer base.
Kent-Braham co-founded London’s Marshmallow with his identical twins, Alexander and David Goaté. The twins do look very similar a lot of The same goes for it. “Actually, you might be talking to Alexander right now!” Oliver joked as we talked about this story. More seriously, though, the startup is also underrepresented in another way.
This is one of two “unicorn” startups from the UK from Black founders, the other around the world. Statistics are not a great encouragement outside the UK either. one 2024 Research It was found that throughout the UK and the US, only 3% of startups have a valuation of over $1 billion.
Marshmallow investors clearly see special advantages as the United States removes diversity, equity and inclusion programs because Its diverse leadership.
“It’s a very strong founding team,” Devon Kirk, GP and co-head of Portage Capital Solutions, said in an interview. “We believe financial services benefit from different perspectives, and leaders come up with innovative solutions to meet these needs.”
