In this insightful discussion, Sebastian Pitzler, Managing Partner at Ensure Growth Capital, shares his expertise on driving innovation in the insurance industry through strategic investments in startups. With over 23 years of experience in the insurance sector, Sebastian highlights Ensure Growth Capital’s unique value proposition as a European venture capital fund dedicated to the insurance industry. The firm leverages its deep industry knowledge and extensive network to identify and support promising startups that are creating meaningful solutions along the insurance value chain.

Key Learnings:

1. InsurTech Opportunities: Sebastian emphasizes the significant potential for innovation in the insurance industry, particularly in areas such as health tech, med tech, and data-driven solutions. By investing in startups that leverage data insights, artificial intelligence, and cutting-edge technologies, Ensure Growth Capital aims to drive innovation and growth for incumbent insurers.
2. Strategic Investments: Ensure Growth Capital offers a unique combination of financial capital and strategic expertise to its portfolio companies. In addition to providing growth capital, the firm connects startups with potential B2B partners and industry experts, facilitating their scale-up and market penetration.
3. UK Market Focus: Sebastian highlights the firm’s special interest in the UK market, where numerous meaningful technological advancements in healthcare services and data collection are taking place. These innovations present significant opportunities for the insurance industry to enhance customer experiences, develop preventive solutions, improve diagnostics, and enable remote medicine services.
4. Cologne as an Innovation Hub: Sebastian underscores the strategic significance of Cologne as a launchpad for global growth. With its central location, excellent infrastructure, and supportive startup ecosystem, Cologne serves as an ideal base for startups to expand across Germany, Europe, and beyond. Initiatives like InsureLab Germany, Ensure Next, and the firm’s venture capital activities contribute to nurturing this thriving InsurTech ecosystem.

This video post offers valuable insights for entrepreneurs, investors, and industry players interested in the dynamic world of InsurTech. By understanding Ensure Growth Capital’s strategic approach, viewers can gain a deeper appreciation for the potential of data-driven and technology-enabled solutions in transforming the insurance industry. Additionally, the discussion highlights the emerging opportunities in the UK market and the advantages of leveraging Cologne’s vibrant ecosystem for global growth.

Transcript

Welcome Sebastian from Ensure Growth Capital,

please tell us a little bit about your background and also the new opportunity that you have and this unique investment and growth that Ensure Growth Capital is bringing to the InsurTech Market.

Hello Mark, it’s my pleasure to be here with you today and thank you very much for this fantastic interview opportunity. My name is Sebastian Pitzler, I’m since 23 years with the insurance industry I was always focused on the technological development in this area and how we can so to say translate the technology development and opportunities into the insurance industry.

I’ve used to work for 16 years with the Ergo Insurance group, which is part of Munich Re, especially on the it strategy and Innovation part. After ERGO I moved on to InsurLab Germany as managing director where I was able to build up this great industry initiative over five years and right now I’m since more than one year with Ensure Growth Capital which is a venture capital Initiative for the insurance industry. That’s where we are right into the topic, so Ensure Growth Capital is the European Venture Capital fund for the insurance industry. We are insurance and VC experts with an extraordinary and reliable Network into the insurance industry. Based on that we are creating value for investors and startups on both sides. From the investors perspective we are delivering Financial return opportunities combined with an extraordinary strategic perspective and strategic insights. We know the industry pretty well – their challenges and chances; we invest in startups that create new meaningful solutions along the value chain of an insurance company; by that we want to create Innovation and growth for the incumbents based on startup technology. When we are talking about the startup side we are really looking for startups in their scale and growth phase. Right now we are looking for startups with a proven product market fit and first customers; then we are bringing not only capital to grow to the table but also potential B2B Partners as well as industry experts. That is how we create a value proposition for the startups bringing capital and B2B partners.

That’s one part of our value proposition how we get access to really interesting and competitive startup deals so to say.

Sebastian that’s fascinating and I know you’re very interested in UK HealthTech and Medtech data-driven businesses can you explain a little bit why that focus is there with EGC

Yes, so what we are observing is that in the UK Market there are really a lot of meaningful technological developments and advancements around the health care services and data collection. As we all know “data is the new oil” in let me say technological industry and that’s how we really want to drive innovation in the insurance ecosystem. What’s really interesting about the insurance industry is that we are covering every sphere of life – so we are supporting our customers in the area of Financial Security for example in the area of their home and liability topics; we helping and supporting mobility and travel efforts but also health; I mean health topics are really meaningful for every individual for every private person here around so to say and from an insurance industry perspective we have a lot of customers in this segment, we have a lot of premiums that we are generating there and we are also facing a lot of costs and increasing costs based on the healthcare prevention and health care services out there; so there’s a huge potential for us to take care of our customers life to become let me say a life assistant with regards to prevention approaches for example and there are startup solutions especially in the UK Market that are focusing on data insights to develop for example Prevention Services to develop better diagnostics based on data and for example on the overlap with artificial intelligence.  There are opportunities to create new great customer services for example in the area of remote medicine services and so on. So there’s a great overlap from the insurance industry and activities and the health care industry and services as well and that’s why we have a very special eye and perspective on the UK Market.

Sebastian that’s absolutely fascinating and and also I’m really intrigued by the importance of the city of Cologne both as a center for this but how that enables growth not just in Cologne but across Germany Europe and ultimately globally

That’s absolutely right so I mean the city of Cologne is so to say by nature located in the center of Germany and Europe as well. It’s really a fantastic starting point and launch pad to start let me say from a geographical perspective, but also from an economic perspective. So we have a great location in the center of Germany: it takes the same time to travel to Paris, London, Hamburg, Berlin or Munich – we have a great infrastructure by plane by train by car and so on. And we have, of course, from the business environment a great framework to star: we have open-minded people, we have a great welcome culture, the local authorities are focusing on a great startup ecosystem here and we are helping the startups to grow from Cologne to Germany and Europe as well as globally.

With that kind of activities that we are providing for example in the insurance industry: we have established InsurLab Germany as an match-making platform and Innovation Hub which is working on a European level, we have created insureNXT which is a really successful international congress for innovation in the insurance industry last year we have attracted more than 3,000 participants and 170 speakers from all around the world to come to Cologne to talk about this industry Innovation and right now we are establishing Ensure Growth Capital to deliver Venture Capital to this ecosystem as well.

So from the match-making to the international congress and right now with this new Venture Capital initiative we are covering so to say every sphere of this insurance and InsurTech ecosystem. This is one example how we are helping startups and companies to grow from Cologne to Germany, Europe and also on the global level.

Sebastian thank you very much indeed.