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Zelros Raises $11 Million in Series A Funding to Bring AI-Powered Responsible Insurance Distribution to North America
French insurtech startup paves a path to automation and innovation for insurers
Zelros, the industry's first AI-driven platform dedicated to advancing insurance distribution, today announced the successful close of an $11 Million Series A financing round, bringing the company's total funding to date to $16.5M. Silicon Valley-based BGV led the round with new participation from ISAI Cap Venture and Plug and Play. Historical investors HI INOV, 42CAP and astorya.vc also participated in the round.
The Zelros AI business platform offers insurers, bancassurers, and policyholders a more efficient, fluid, and personalized way to distribute and receive products and services. The platform continuously learns, adapts, and improves its capabilities in real-time, offering insurance advisors and agents a streamlined and semi-automated experience from product/service needs discovery and sales to underwriting. It also allows insurance providers to offer policyholders fully automated, advisor-free subscription options. This enables incumbent industry leaders to compete with both fast-growth, technology-first insurance startups and tech behemoths heavily investing in insurtech. The company will use the funding to scale operations across Europe and expand into North America, strengthening its leadership position in the insurtech space.
"Digital transformation is fundamentally changing how businesses operate, and with insurtech funding reaching an all-time high of $7.1 billion in 2020, the insurance industry is no exception," said Christophe Bourguignat, co-founder and CEO, Zelros. "At Zelros, we focus one hundred percent of our attention on developing AI-driven technology to improve and advance the insurance industry. We're passionate about helping insurance players transform into technology-first companies, and the support of BGV, Capgemini, and all of our investors will empower us to accomplish our mission."
Following a $5.5 Million seed round of fundraising in 2018, Zelros has experienced two consecutive years of triple-digit revenue growth, expanded its operations across three countries, and grown its team by over 350 percent to 50 employees. In 2020 alone, Zelros software reviewed over 20 million policyholder-specific situations and issued over two million personalized recommendations. The company currently works with 15 of the leading insurance providers in Europe, including BPCE, AXA, Crédit Agricole, MAIF, La Banque Postale, AssurOne, +Simple, across property and casualty (P&C) and life insurance business lines. Zelros also works closely with insurance regulators to promote usage of fair and transparent AI, and has published its own open standard for ethical, enterprise-grade AI to pave the way in this field. Zelros' co-founder and COO, Damien Philippon, will relocate and launch the company's Montreal-based North American headquarters in Q3 2021. The company plans to hire five full-time employees at its North American location by the end of the year.
"Zelros is using AI to improve traditional insurance-industry standards and deliver immediate business value and ROI improvements for its customers. Their solution is helping insurance professionals to be more efficient and integrates smoothly into existing workflows while providing transparency on the final recommendation. This is exactly what we look for in the Enterprise 4.0 startups we invest in," said Eric Buatois, general partner, BGV. "At BGV, our expertise lies in sourcing the best startups in hubs outside of the valley and helping them scale up globally. We're thrilled to work together with Zelros to build their business in Europe, North America, and beyond."
"The COVID pandemic and the digital revolution have forced insurers across the globe to rethink how they sell; even those who rely on agents and brokers to make the sale recognize the power of technology to enhance the productivity and effectiveness of the people who represent their brand. Zelros brings a powerful AI-based capability to the insurance sales process. Its machine learning engine identifies upsell and cross-sell opportunities at the point of customer interaction empowering agents to recommend the right insurance product to the right customer at the right time," said Seth Rachlin, global head of property and casualty insurance for Capgemini.
In 2020, Zelros landed on the INSURTECH 100 annual list of 100 of the world's most innovative insurtech companies, was named one of 20 French startups to watch by Sifted, and was named to FirstMark Capital's 2020 Data & AI Landscape annual report. For more information on Zelros visit: https://www.zelros.com/.
About Zelros
Zelros develops the first AI software dedicated to the insurance distribution of tomorrow. It enables insurance players to offer a fluid and personalized experience from intelligent lead management through need analysis and advice to automated underwriting. Zelros solutions are used daily by advisors, agents and managers of insurers such as BPCE, AXA, Crédit Agricole, MAIF, La Banque Postale, AssurOne and +Simple.
