Irish company enables seamless, data-led insurance product distribution
Pre-seed funding will support Kayna’s expansion across the UK and USA
CORK, Ireland, Sept. 20, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Kayna, the award-winning embedded insurance infrastructure platform, has closed a €1 million pre-seed funding round. Co-led by Delta Partners (Ireland) and MiddleGame Ventures (pan-European) with participation from Aperture (Switzerland) and InsurTech Fund – an affiliate of InsurTech NY (USA), the funding comes as the company accelerates market development efforts into the United Kingdom and United States.
Providing technology and data orchestration between insurance carriers, brokers, and any vertical software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform, Kayna drives top-line growth for vertical SaaS providers while providing relevant insurance to underserved SMBs. The global vertical SaaS market serves millions of businesses and consumers, each with a diverse set of needs. Embedded insurance is forecast to reach US$722 billion in gross written premium by 2030, according to InsTech London.
A key feature that makes Kayna’s platform ideal for embedded insurance distribution to dynamic SMBs is its tracking of relevant data changes. The platform enables insurers and brokers to conduct real-time reviews of insurance coverage and adapt policies to meet SMBs’ insurance needs.
“We are delighted to have secured the support of such expert, innovative, and highly collaborative investors,” said Paul Prendergast, CEO and co-founder of Kayna. “Vertical SaaS has already embraced embedded fintech through payments and capital lending. Embedded insurance is the logical next step, offering transformative advantages for vertical SaaS platforms, enabling them to enhance the customer experience, expand revenue streams, mitigate risks and differentiate themselves in the market, whilst delivering real value to their SMB customers. This funding is already powering our new business development and partner onboarding in the UK and US markets so we have hit the ground running and are hugely excited by the potential.”
“Kayna ticked all the boxes for us,” said Maurice Roche, General Partner at Delta Partners. “The team are proven, successful insurtech innovators and the Kayna solution is outstanding. As a versatile solution, top among its many strengths are its capacity to (a) use a platform’s data to boost revenue and render it even more valuable, (b) offer SMBs accurate insurance with a supported claims process, saving them time and money, and (c) unlock new distribution channels for Insurance carriers. It’s a winner on every level. We see a significant global market opportunity and look forward to the next steps.”
“We are excited to be supporting Paul and Peter on this journey as second-time insurtech founders, with a successful exit under their belt and a wealth of expertise and contacts in the insurance profession,” added Kanishk Walia, MiddleGame Ventures Partner. “SMBs continue to be underserved and underinsured by traditional insurance offerings and we believe Kayna is well positioned to change this by opening up access to data sets siloed within vertical SaaS platforms, generating incremental revenue streams for these vendors while creating enhanced distribution opportunities for brokers and carriers.”
Kayna was launched in 2021 by Paul Prendergast and CTO Peter Bermingham, who have scaled multiple insurtech businesses during their 19-year partnership.
About Kayna
Kayna enables embedded insurance through vertical SaaS platforms. It provides the technology and data orchestration layer between carriers, brokers and any vertical SaaS platform to distribute products that are directly relevant to policyholders. Founded in 2021, Kayna was developed in the Founders Factory Venture Studio in collaboration with Aviva. The company is a Lloyd’s Lab Accelerator Programme Cohort 9 alumnus and winner of the 2023 InsurTech NY’s Carrier/Broker Competition for Global Early-Stage Insurtech. Kayna operates across platforms that serve millions of people and businesses worldwide, ranging from field services, fintech and retail, to personal care and wellness. For more information, visit https://kayna.io/
About Delta Partners
Delta Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage startups in Ireland. For over 30 years, Delta Partners has been supporting entrepreneurs to build great businesses. Having invested in over 120 companies with exits generating €1.8 billion, Delta has a track record of investment performance, with LPs including Enterprise Ireland, Bank of Ireland and Fexco, as well as the family offices of successful Irish technology entrepreneurs. Today, the Delta team are investing in early stage Irish companies across a range of sectors. Check us out at https://www.deltapartners.com.
About MiddleGame Ventures
MiddleGame Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm backing world-class fintech entrepreneurs from Seed through Series B. We invest in, and partner with, exceptional European entrepreneurs that are re-architecting and digitising financial services. We are on the cusp of the next wave of financial services innovation – moving from automation tools and electronic infrastructure to fully digital financial services and assets. As such, the foundational blocks of financial services will be re-shaped by new core systems and driven by the next generation of European entrepreneurs. For more information, visit https://www.middlegamevc.com/
About Aperture
Founded in 2019 in Switzerland, Aperture invests in, and works alongside, founders of the most promising early-stage companies in embedded finance, B2B fintech SaaS and enterprise applied AI.
With a global expert team spanning financial services, technology, strategy, product and marketing, Aperture provides value-added embedded services to its portfolio companies, accelerating product-market fit and growth. Its team includes people who have invested in, built and exited venture-backed startups, acted at board and management level within public companies and designed, built and marketed internet products and services used by hundreds of millions of people. Combining scalable execution capabilities, proprietary know-how and tailored technology into a full-stack growth engine, Aperture helps accelerate performance across the entire sales and marketing funnel.
By leveraging its unique, long-term service engagements with startups, Aperture gains privileged insights into team dynamics, sales pipeline and customer success. This “inside-out” due diligence enables Aperture to make investment decisions based on deeper assessments and better-informed convictions. As well as balance sheet investments, Aperture also syndicates investments to a network of co-investors. For more information, visit https://www.aperture.co/
About InsurTech NY
Founded in 2019, InsurTech NY brings together carriers, brokers, investors, and insurtech startups. InsurTech NY’s mission is to help support the insurance industry take advantage of latest digital technology to improve efficiencies and increase revenue, and be ready for the inevitable digitally transformed Insurance industry. We do this through our public events, corporate innovation program, competition, accelerator, MGA lab and the venture fund. For more information, visit https://www.insurtechny.com/
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