AI insurtech Ominimo bags its first investment at a $220M valuation

How do you ensure that talented engineers work for a startup in an everyday field at a time when more exciting companies pay well and hire aggressively? Here is an answer from one insurance start from Poland, called Throw away: Make payment competing, but more importantly, give those engineers the license to apply their talent and to find out how the field works.

Ominimo was launched only 12 months ago with a bootstrapped budget and believes that it has found a different and better approach to the concept and price risk. The company says that it is already profitable and is growing rapidly, with 300,000 policy measures registered in the first market in Hungary. Now, to feed his next phase of life, it takes its first external investment from a strategic backer, Zurich Insurance Group.

WAN understands from sources that Zurich does a stock investments of € 10 million (around $ 11 million) for 5% of the company, which makes Ominimo appreciated at € 200 million ($ 220 million). Neither Ominimo nor Zurich commented on the invested amount, but both have confirmed the appreciation.

Ominimo has collected financing at a time when one of the most well-known and well-capitalized insurance startups in Europa-de Each Unicorn Wefox-IS Sell ​​share of his affairs and pick up Lifeline Financing Unpleasant Keep floating.

Wefox serves as a warning story about how to grow an insurance company, but also a clear opportunity. Undoubtedly, the reason Wefox grew so fast, because of the demand in the market (both consumers and investors) – a startup only had to surf without wiping away.

Ominimo is already profitable, but it is perhaps a modest effort. Nowadays the startup is active in just one market, Hungary, and he only focuses on one type of insurance, car insurance for consumers. The plan is to replicate his model in more regions and categories.

The company is planning to expand to more than 10 new markets, starting with Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands. Zurich insurance will serve as its risk supplementation, and Ominimo will operate as a broker, in particular a Management of General AgentFor Zurich. The startup initially focuses on car insurance, but is also planning to add real estate insurance over time.

Dusan Komar, the CEO of Ominimo who co-designed the company with Dennis Weinbender (now Chief Prices and Data Officer) and Laslo Horvath (CTO), saw the challenges that the insurance sector was confronted with firsthand when he worked for McKinsey. Large insurance companies, he said, were certain because of three main problems: rigid legacy systems that were a challenge, if not impossible, to quickly launch new services or to work with newer innovations such as AI-based prices; slow decision -making processes at company level; And talent.

“No brilliant software engineer or data scientist dreams of working for an insurance company,” he said.

McKinsey and others as it is usually called in to try to repair all three at the same time. Komar and his team would build new products from the ground and “hand over the code” to the insurance customer. “It worked to a certain extent, but not as perfect as we had hoped,” he said.

Komar and his two co-founders saw a management from the worlds of Fintech and other insurance startups and saw an opportunity to develop a product like their own company instead of for a customer. They would use APIs to connect functions and functionality of other providers that they may not build themselves, and that is how Ominimo was born.

Ominimo essentially applies a number of AI-based reasoning around Big data analyzes. When building and prices of an insurance quotation, a traditional insurance company can use five or six main parameters (age, economic bracket, type of vehicle, driving history in the past or location of the car) to determine a price. A newer insurer can add another 10 or 15 parameters to this.

“But there are some non-obvious variables that are actually super important,” Komar said. Once you have received the license plate of a vehicle, you can tap into a database, he said, which gives you 100 different variables over the vehicle, including the length, height, width and weight of the vehicle. “For example, it is interesting to see that data shows a very strong correlation between the length of the car and the frequency of accidents during parking,” he said.

Ominimo takes all these details, plus population density and more, taking into account the calculations.

There are of course many insurance startups on the market that praise the use of AI on their platforms, both for decision-making in the back-end and to improve the customer experience at the front. Idem the existence of dozens of startups in Fintech who also claim that they are being built on AI.

Komar’s response to this is that Ominimo’s track record speaks for itself. “I think what really matters are actually achievements in the market, so if you compare our performance with lemonade [a key competitor]You will actually see the difference, “he said. He claimed that the “loss ratio” of Ominimo is lower than the market average, and it has already picked up a market share of 7% in Hungary, the only country where it is active.

As with many of the Neobanks on the Markt – Fintech and Insurance have a lot in common – many “new” insurance players do less disruption under the hood because they create a more modern user experience.

“There is a difference between claiming data science in terms of risk assessment, and actually doing it,” he said. Many of his startup competitors, he believes, “have actually focused on superior customer experience, very nice front-end, very slender and intuitive journeys. But there was not much under the hood.”

Giving talent a place to do the kind of work they want to do, he claimed, is how Ominimo has attracted and retained important people. “We have eight medal winners from mathematics and physics Olympiaden [prestigious competitions in these fields] Among us Data Science Team, “he said.” These are really brilliant young spirits who can now use their full potential on a global scale for the first time. And this really shows in the KPIs that we see. ‘

That is also what caused Zurich’s insurance, which is looking for more diversified ways to get new waves of customers.

“The growing of our profitable retail activities is an important ambition in the Cycle of 2025-2027 of Zurich. That is why I am happy with the distribution partner of DA Direkt with Ominimo, with which we can offer innovative motorcycle insurance solutions and expand our retail -customer stock in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the markets, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in the marks, in markets, in the marks, in the mark. -Statement, in A -I am also happy that we are strengthening our relationship with a minority interest in Ominimo. “