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Finovate Blog
Tracking fintech, banking & financial services innovations since 1994
Travel and expense management company Mesh Payments has selected SoFi as its sponsor bank and has tapped SoFi-owned Galileo Financial Technologies as its payment processor.
Mesh Payments is an all-in-one corporate payments platform for travel and expense that integrates corporate cards, expense management, and travel bookings on a single platform. Mesh Payments offers SaaS enterprises cardless payments capabilities that enable full visibility, control, and intelligence to help them orchestrate, manage, reconcile, and ultimately reduce spending. The company, which processes more than $1 billion in annual payment volume, was founded in 2018.
Under the partnership, Mesh Payments’ expense and card infrastructure will tap SoFi’s financial framework and Galileo’s customizable, API-based payments processing platform. Mesh Payments anticipates that leveraging both SoFi as its sponsor bank and Galileo as its processing platform will help it offer more streamlined enterprise expense management, reduce inefficiencies, and bring solutions to market more quickly.
“We’re excited to partner with SoFi and Galileo, as both companies share our vision of delivering the most modern and innovative financial solutions for businesses,” said Mesh CEO Oded Zehavi. “They are the ideal partners to support our mission to provide companies with an efficient, forward-thinking approach to corporate travel and expense management.”
Founded in 2001, Galileo offers a payment processing platform that allows third-party fintechs and businesses to build and scale their own financial services offerings. The company’s client list includes DailyPay, Bluevine, Dave, MoneyLion, Monzo, and others. Galileo was acquired by SoFi in 2020 in a $1.2 billion deal.
Founded in 2011, SoFi has evolved from a lending platform into a nationally chartered bank that offers checking and savings accounts, investing tools, and insurance plans. The company landed its first sponsor bank deal in April of 2024 when it partnered with small business banking platform Rapid Finance.
“SoFi is proud to provide the financial backbone for forward-thinking solutions like Mesh Payments,” said SoFi Bank President Paul Mayer. “With SoFi and Galileo under one roof, we empower partners like Mesh Payments to harness Galileo’s advanced cloud-based banking core, enabling them to launch new products faster, scale seamlessly, and stay ahead of their customers’ ever-changing needs.”
Community banks and credit unions have long been the cornerstone of local economies. As technology and consumer preferences evolve, however, so must their revenue strategies.
Today’s Streamly video highlights a conversation I had with Rob Thacher, CEO at BankShift, a banking-as-a-service platform. During our conversation, Thacher and I discussed embedded finance, leveraging data to create personalized products, fintech partnerships, subscription services, and BankShift’s Brand on Banking.
BankShift built a business model all around the credit union space because they give dividends back to their members. And so we built a Brand on Banking ecosystem that enables community banks and credit unions to be different and have a new revenue stream. Financial institutions can embed their own technology inside that brand for revenues, for loyalty, and control.
BankShift creates a digital banking platform that helps community banks and credit unions generate new revenue streams, enforce control, and build loyalty. The company’s SDK provides low-code tools that help financial institutions create a branded, a unified app with a single login and a money transfer tool. The Oregon-based company was founded in 2020.
Correction: This post previously incorrectly reported that Atlanta, Georgia-based Themis raised funds. Today’s round is actually attributed to U.K.-based Themis.While both companies operate in the regtech realm, the former, a Finovate alum that recently won Best of Show, offers a platform that streamlines compliance and collaboration between fintechs and banks, bringing regulatory insight to help banks and fintechs more effectively manage compliance. The latter is a digital financial crime platform that helps businesses manage their financial crime risk exposure.
Regtech platform Themis raised over $9.2 million (£7.25 million) in its scale-up round.
The round, which is expected to close on December 16, 2024, exceeds Themis’ initial target by a significant margin.
Themis will use the funds to leverage AI to continue to democratize due dilligence.
Regtech is rising across the fintech sector, and to prove it, financial crime risk management platform Themis has pulled in more than $9.2 million (£7.25 million) in a scale-up round that surpasses its target.
“Exceeding our funding target reflects not only the confidence of our investors but also the strong financial fundamentals and scalability of our business,” said Themis CFO Simon Samuel. “This additional capital provides us with the financial runway to strategically invest in key areas like AI innovation, market expansion, and operational efficiencies, ensuring long-term sustainable growth.”
The investment, which is expected to close on December 16th of this year, exceeds Themis’ initial target of $3.8 million to $6.3 million (£3 million to £5 million). Once finalized, the funds will add to the U.K.-based company’s existing $6 million (£4.8 million) raised, totaling more than $15 million.
“Surpassing our Scale-Up Funding target by such a significant margin demonstrates the strength of Themis’ vision and its relevance in today’s financial landscape,” said Themis CEO Dickon Johnstone.
Themis was founded in 2018 to help reduce the global impacts of financial crime. The company’s platform, which helps clients identify and manage their specific financial crime risks, leverages KYC and AML data to help companies verify the true identity of their clients while remaining compliant. Themis will use this most recent round to pursue its mission to democratize due diligence by leveraging AI advancements with its financial crime expertise.
Financial services has experienced a surge in regtech adoption, driven by the growth of AI and machine learning, as well as an evolving regulatory landscape. In 2025, regtech is poised to further enhance compliance processes with real-time risk management, automated reporting, and enhanced collaboration between banks and regulators. According to Angela Strange, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, regulation will become code.
“Today, banking and insurance regulations span tens of thousands of pages; SBA lending documentation alone exceeds 1,000 pages,” said Strange. “For businesses, keeping on top of these codes requires byzantine workflows and many hours spent hiring and training staff. Imagine, instead, that those lengthy documents — including text, images, and case precedents — could be used to train regulation-specific LLMs. Suddenly, compliance would become as simple as a Google query. ‘Is [X] compliant? What modifications need to be made?'”
With only a few weeks to go until 2025, it is time to take a look at some of the trends we can expect to see more of in the next 12 months. There are a handful of topics that seem to be dominating the conversation in fintech as we wrap up 2024, and here’s what you’ll need to know as we head into 2025.
Crypto
I have to apologize for this one, because I know that many readers don’t want to hear anything about crypto. It does, however, need to be considered.
Why it’s big: After a dip and many volatile few years, crypto is entering a more mature phase. The conversation is no longer just about Bitcoin and speculative trading. Instead, we’re seeing increased institutional adoption and clearer regulatory frameworks emerging across the globe. With this, major players are poised to enter (or re-enter) the crypto space, which positions crypto as no longer a fringe technology, but a part of the financial ecosystem.
What you need to do about it: If you haven’t already, now is the time to educate yourself and your organization about crypto. Go beyond the basics and evaluate how blockchain technology might be relevant to your own operations. Also, stay informed about regulatory changes, as they are sure to change as crypto continues to evolve.
Stablecoins
This technically fits into the crypto category, but it deserves a highlight all on its own because of the potential. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency pegged to a fiat currency or a commodity, such as gold.
Why it’s big: Stablecoins bridge the gap between the volatility of traditional cryptocurrencies and the stability of fiat currencies. They have been successfully used in cross-border payments, remittances, and payroll for global workforces because they enable instant payouts at rates much cheaper than funds sent via traditional banking rails.
What you need to do about it: Organizations operating in payments should investigate the costs and benefits of integrating stablecoins into their offerings. In particular, if your firm services businesses with international clients or cross-border supply chains, you should explore how stablecoin adoption could help service your commercial clients.
Open banking/ Section 1033
For U.S. readers, open banking made its debut in the form of a CFPB ruling in October of this year. Firms with the largest assets have until 2026 to comply, and those with assets between $10 billion and $250 billion have until 2027. There may be benefits to early compliance.
Why it’s big: The new open banking rule shifts data ownership from the financial institution to the individual consumer. This shift creates more opportunities for innovation, improved transparency, and more personalized services. The U.K. and Australia, which are early leaders when it comes to open banking, have already proven that giving consumers control over their own data is beneficial to multiple parties.
What you need to do about it: Even though some firms have until 2027 to prepare, start preparing now, as you may need to invest in infrastructure upgrades such as developing new APIs. Early compliance could give you a competitive edge by offering you time to create new products and services tailored to your customers.
Honorable mentions
Condensing fintech down into three topics does not capture the widespread nature of the industry, so here are some honorable mentions.
Agentic AI You may notice I did not include AI, which is a notoriously hot topic, among the top three trends. That is because the industry has finally moved beyond talking about AI as the technology to implement, and now considers it as the enabling technology that it is. Agentic AI, however, has its own role to play, especially in wealth management and back office automation. AI that can act independently to make decisions based on customer preferences or operational needs will play a large role in shaping fintech’s future.
BNPL With Klarna’s IPO taking place in 2025, we can expect to see interest in the BNPL space surge to new heights. However, it won’t reach 2020 levels because questions about regulation and profitability remain, especially as interest rates vacillate. However, BNPL continues to evolve with new players entering the space and existing ones expanding into adjacent markets like subscriptions and services.
Regtech The ongoing fallout from the Synapse failure has created a renewed focus on regulatory compliance. Banks are rethinking their regtech strategies, while new regtechs are leveraging tools such as large language models and GenAI to meet demand for automated compliance tools and fraud detection solutions.
Real-time payments The adoption of real-time payment systems has been gaining momentum across the globe, especially since the launch of the Federal Reserve’s FedNow service in 2023. While more businesses and consumers are slowly becoming accustomed to instant transactions, banks have shown hesitancy to send real-time payments.
Pay-by-bank In many ways, pay-by-bank goes hand-in-hand with open banking, which is fueling the growth in pay-by-bank. Direct, bank-to-bank payments are popular with merchants because of the lower fees and faster settlement times. Consumers, however, may be hesitant to use pay-by-bank unless they receive a monetary incentive at the point of purchase.
The new suite is powered by Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, which gives developers REST API access to OpenAI’s language models.
The GenAI Financial Crime Detection Suite enables financial institutions to improve AML efforts, streamline compliance, and proactively manage risk indicators.
Financial crime detection company ThetaRayannounced it is collaborating with Microsoft in the launch of its new product, GenAI Financial Crime Detection Suite.
The new suite integrates Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service, a service that gives developers REST API access to OpenAI’s language models, such as o1-preview, GPT-4o, and GPT-4. The service allows clients to adapt the models to their specific task or use case.
ThetaRay reports that teaming up with Microsoft will allow it to bring firms a GenAI-powered case manager that will detect financial crime, adapt strategies over time, and meet legal reporting standards. ThetaRay reports that its collaboration with Microsoft will enable it to deliver a GenAI-powered case manager designed to detect financial crimes, refine detection strategies, and ensure compliance with regulatory reporting standards. With the launch of its new GenAI Financial Crime Detection Suite, ThetaRay aims to enhance risk assessment, streamline operational workflows, and strengthen anti-money laundering (AML) reporting to reduce fraudulent activity, such as money laundering and terrorist financing.
“ThetaRay’s integration with Azure OpenAI Service delivers a solution that empowers financial institutions to enhance key components of their AML efforts, like oversight, reporting, and risk catalogue processes,” said Azure AIat Microsoft Corp. Vice President Yina Arenas. “By integrating generative AI in their financial crime detection solutions, organizations can mitigate risk, drive exceptional efficiencies, and elevate regulatory standards.”
Along with today’s release, ThetaRay is also unveiling a new, GenAI-driven risk catalogue to enable financial institutions to add risk indicators. “Our technology has already established us as a leader in AI, and now with our newest risk catalogue solution, we’re empowering organizations to proactively manage risks, streamline compliance, and make more informed decisions,” said ThetaRay CEO Peter Reynolds. “We are excited to continue to deepen our collaboration with Microsoft, using their Azure OpenAI Service to enhance our vision of enabling trusted transactions across the financial ecosystem.”
Founded in 2013, ThetaRay offers transaction monitoring, transaction and customer screening, and customer risk assessment suites to help firms fight financial crime. The Israel-based company helps its 100+ institutional clients leverage AI to monitor 15 billion transactions valued at $20 trillion on an annual basis.
Mobile banking platform MoneyLion has been acquired by identity protection and cybersecurity company Gen Digital Inc.
The $1 billion deal is expected to close in 2025.
Gen plans to diversify its offerings by integrating MoneyLion’s credit-building tools, financial management services, and embedded finance marketplace into its portfolio.
Mobile banking platform MoneyLion is the latest among a string of acquisitions taking place in fintech this month. The New York-based company has agreed to be acquired by Gen Digital Inc. (Gen), the parent company of a range of digital identity protection brands, for $1 billion.
Founded in 2013, MoneyLion offers both direct-to-consumer banking tools as well as a marketplace of embedded banking tools, called Engine, for businesses. This enterprise technology suite serves as a marketplace for financial products to enable financial services and non-financial services companies alike to add embedded finance to their business leveraging MoneyLion’s API.
Gen expects today’s $1 billion purchase will help it branch out from identity solutions into new financial services verticals. Specifically, Gen is seeking to add financial wellness offerings using MoneyLion’s credit building and financial management services, as well as its white-labeled AI recommendation platform. Gen will also acquire MoneyLion’s 18+ million customers, a group which Gen anticipates will diversify its existing client base.
“Gen has a family of consumer brands that’s dedicated to protecting people’s privacy, identity, and financial assets so they can live their digital lives securely and without worry,” said Gen CEO Vincent Pilette. “By bringing MoneyLion into the Gen family, we’re not only helping people protect what they already have, we’re extending our capabilities to enable people to better manage and grow their financial wealth. We look forward to welcoming the MoneyLion team, so together, we can power digital and financial freedom.”
Gen was founded in 2022 and counts Norton, Avast, LifeLock, Avira, AVG, ReputationDefender, and CCleaner among its consumer brands. In all, Gen’s brands help bring cybersecurity, online privacy, and identity protection tools to almost 500 million users in more than 150 countries. The Arizona-based company is publicly listed on the NASDAQ with a market capitalization of $18.3 billion.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of Gen’s fiscal year, spanning April 2025 to late September 2025. The transaction is proposed at $82 per share, plus one contingent value right (“CVR”) that entitles the holder to a contingent payment of $23 for each MoneyLion share in the form of shares of Gen common stock.
“We’ll deliver MoneyLion’s leading personal financial management tools and embedded financial marketplaces to Gen’s users while bringing Gen’s strong identity, trust and cybersecurity solutions to our customers,” said MoneyLion Co-Founder and CEO Dee Choubey. “Together, we’ll create unmatched consumer value, combining innovative fintech products and experiences with Gen’s trusted network to empower smarter financial decisions and secure people’s digital and financial lives.”
Gen’s purchase of MoneyLion is notable because it is unique. It may be the first time a fraud and security firm has acquired a digital bank– generally, it would be the other way around. However, given the increasing overlap between financial services and cybersecurity, this acquisition is a logical one. As security threats become more sophisticated, the integration of financial wellness tools with identity and security solutions positions Gen to address consumer needs more holistically.
Lunar introduced Moonrise, a standalone enterprise payments offering to help organizations scale in the Nordic region’s notably complex payments ecosystem.
Lunar expects that the BaaS market will grow 3.3x to €100 billion in five years.
Lunar anticipates that Moonrise will help to lower barriers to entry for companies operating in the Nordics, which will not only foster innovation and competition, but also help to offer consumers better services and pricing options.
Nordic challenger bank Lunarlaunched a new, enterprise payments offering this week. The standalone product, called Moonrise, aims to simplify financial connectivity for payment businesses looking to scale in the Nordics.
Moonrise helps fintechs, challenger banks, and global payments providers navigate the Nordic payments landscape. Denmark, Norway, and Sweden each have unique clearing systems and infrastructure requirements, which creates a complex payments environment. “By breaking down these barriers,” the company’s blog post explained, “we’re creating new opportunities for players who want to innovate and compete in a region traditionally dominated by legacy institutions.”
Moonrise’s API builds on Lunar’s existing infrastructure, which currently processes over 10,000 transactions daily and supports $5.3 billion (€5 billion) in transaction volume.
“The transition to Moonrise reflects Lunar’s strategic focus on growth and innovation,” the blog post said. “By taking the first steps towards creating a standalone entity, we’re giving our enterprise payments division the agility and resources it needs to thrive while also allowing our retail banking arm to continue its successful trajectory.”
Lunar launched in 2015 as a digital bank catering to both retail and commercial clients. The Denmark-based company received its banking license in 2019 and offers personal checking accounts with debit cards, youth accounts, in-app PFM tools, an investing platform, and a BNPL tool that can be retroactively applied to purchases. On the commercial side, Lunar offers business bank accounts, automated bookkeeping, cash flow analytics, expense management tools, loans, insurance, and more.
Launching Moonrise will allow Lunar to pursue the BaaS market, which is expected to reach 100 billion Euros, growing 3.3x over the next five years. Structuring Moonrise as a separate entity will allow both companies to grow in their own direction, without straining the resources of either one.
Lunar recognizes the potential that the BaaS market has to drive innovation and competition in the payments world. By nature, BaaS tools lower the barriers to entry, especially in a challenging market like the Nordics. This will help to increase competition and create an environment in which legacy institutions must innovate to keep pace.
With only two more weeks before the holiday season and 2025 take over the calendar, let’s make this one count. Last week’s news cycle was rife with funding and M&A activity. Will this week bring the same? Stay tuned to find out. We’ll add the latest fintech news throughout the week as the space evolves.
U.K.-based digital bank Zopa raised $87 million in an equity round led by A.P. Moller Holding and existing investors.
The round boosts Zopa’s total funding to $1.067 billion.
Despite declaring plans for a 2022 IPO during its 2021 funding round, Zopa has decided to wait for better market conditions.
Digital bank Zopa seems to be impervious to the downturn in the fintech funding environment. The U.K.-based fintech has just raised $87 million (€80 million), boosting its total raised to $1.067 billion. The equity round was led by A.P. Moller Holding and existing investors.
While the investment comes at a time during which many fintechs are experiencing a funding dry spell, this is not the first time Zopa has beaten the odds. In February 2023, Zopa raised an impressive $92 million (£75 million) from existing investors as well as an undisclosed lead investor. At the time, the company said the round “cements and enhances” its unicorn status.
Zopa, which originally launched as a peer-to-peer lending platform in 2005, pivoted to become a digital bank in 2020, when it received its full banking license from the Financial Conduct Authority. Today, the company holds more than £5 billion in deposits for its 1.3 million customers. Zopa’s platform aims to help users improve their financial health via savings tools, lending products, credit card offerings, and various vehicle financing tools. To date, Zopa has lent more than $16.6 billion (£13 billion) to consumers in the U.K. and currently has £3 billion in loans on its balance sheet.
“Today’s fundraise validates our financial performance and growth potential,” said Zopa CEO Jaidev Janardana. “Since launching our bank in 2020, we’ve consistently offered financial products that offer great value and ease to our customers, supporting our vision to build Britain’s best bank. We are thrilled to have investors who share our excitement at the opportunity to serve more customers across more product categories as we aim to become the go-to bank for millions of consumers.”
Notably, while Zopa billed its 2021 funding round as a “pre-IPO round,” declaring plans to go public by the end of 2022, it appears that plans have changed. The company told TechCrunch that it is not currently pursuing an IPO. “We will wait for the markets to revive and be more positive,” said Janardana in an interview. Interestingly, Klarna, another fintech that delayed its IPO plans, recently filed to go public in 2025. The results of Klarna’s public offering at that time will either convince Zopa that it’s time to IPO or help to cement its decision to continue operating as a private company.
Cloud banking platform Mambu has made its first acquisition, acquiring French fintech Numeral to enhance its payment capabilities and expand its market reach.
Numeral’s cloud-native platform will enable Mambu to offer end-to-end payment workflows, support multiple payment methods, and deliver real-time transaction capabilities to its clients.
With growing demand for embedded payments and real-time payment experiences, this acquisition will help Mambu better serve its clients.
Cloud banking platform Mambu has acquired French fintech Numeral this week in a deal that is expected to advance Mambu’s payment capabilities, helping it capture a wider audience. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“This acquisition marks a considered move to deliver a more modern, comprehensive payment offering which is now an integrated part of Mambu’s product portfolio,” said Mambu CEO Fernando Zandona. “Numeral’s advanced payments platform will enable us to address changing customer demands, strengthen existing product lines, and expand our market reach, while offering businesses advanced capabilities to meet an extensive range of needs.”
France-based Numeral offers a cloud-native, universal payment gateway to help fintechs and banks automate payment processing. The company’s API allows organizations to access payment schemes and connect to partner banks, including BNP Paribas, Barclays, HSBC, and ABN AMRO. Founded in 2021, Numeral has raised $13.8 million (€13 million). The company currently processes more than $10.6 billion (€10 billion) in payments annually.
“Numeral’s values, proven agility, and robust onboarding processes match perfectly with our growth mindset as a business,” Zandona added.
Mambu was founded in 2011 and emerged as one of the pioneering players to move banking software to the cloud. The company’s composable banking approach offers a plug-and-play approach to help organizations shift away from legacy core banking platforms and future proof their operations. Among Mambu’s recent partnerships are payments processor Kuady, Latvia-based INDEXO Bank, and travel payments company Outpayce. Today’s deal marks the Amsterdam-based company’s first acquisition.
By integrating Numeral’s payment platform with its own, Mambu will help its clients manage end-to-end payment workflows, support multiple payment methods, and provide real-time transaction capabilities. The company notes that its existing clients will be able to upgrade to a more sophisticated set of payments capabilities.
For Mambu, enhancing its payments capabilities is a strategic move that aligns with the growing demand for embedded payments. As businesses increasingly seek to integrate embedded payments into their offerings, the ability to manage seamless, real-time payment workflows is becoming a key competitive advantage.
At the same time, consumers are demanding faster, more transparent payment experiences, pushing financial institutions and fintechs to adopt more sophisticated technologies. By integrating Numeral’s advanced platform, Mambu not only strengthens its value proposition but also positions itself as a leader in the modern, scalable payments space.
Israel-based Justt has introduced platform upgrades, including multilingual dispute management and centralized chargeback approval, aimed at simplifying cross-border disputes and improving efficiency for global merchants.
The new features allow merchants to set custom rules for recurring disputes and manage chargebacks centrally through Justt’s interface.
As chargeback volumes are projected to rise 42% by 2026, Justt’s AI-driven tools offer merchants an automated way to handle cases such as friendly fraud.
Justt, an Israel-based company leveraging AI to automate the chargeback process, unveiled some major platform upgrades this week. Among the changes are multilingual dispute management and centralized chargeback approval.
Justt’s newly launched multilingual dispute management offers automatic translation for dispute evidence. The company anticipates that this feature will simplify cross-border disputes by removing language barriers and ultimately allow Justt to better serve global merchants.
The centralized dispute resolution allows merchants to approve chargebacks through Justt’s interface instead of managing chargebacks in a fragmented way using multiple Payment Service Providers. As part of this, the company also allows merchants to set their own custom rules for recurring disputes, enabling them to automate cases that are predictable and better allocate resources to complex disputes.
Justt anticipates that this change will not only simplify the chargeback approval process, but will also reduce administrative load and speed up dispute decisions to give merchants real-time control over approvals.
“We are fundamentally changing how merchants manage chargebacks,” said Ofir Tahor, CEO of Justt. “This is a significant step in our mission to equip merchants with AI-driven tools, allowing them to simplify complex challenges and focus on growing their businesses.”
Justt was founded in 2020 to help merchants resolve illegitimate chargebacks by using AI to boost recovery rates. The company’s platform integrates with over 40 payment service providers, including Stripe, PayPal, and American Express. Merchants can use Justt’s platform to view and manage all chargeback-related data in one place, and quickly resolve the dispute process. Justt has raised a total of $11 million from investors including Former PayPal President David Marcus and Citi Ventures.
Since the increase in ecommerce activity has taken off in the past five years, there has been a substantial increase in chargeback volumes. According to Mastercard, chargeback volumes will reach 337 million by 2026, which represents a 42% increase from 2023 levels. This rise can be attributed to the growing complexity of the dispute resolution process as well as friendly fraud, where consumers dispute legitimate transactions. Friendly fraud rates, according to Chargebacks911, have been growing “at somewhere around the 40% rate” every year.
For merchants, chargebacks result in direct financial losses as well as reputation damages, while banks — who have to protect consumers while being fair to merchants — face operational burdens. Looking ahead, the chargebacks puzzle will become more complicated. That’s because, as third party providers like Justt advance their practices using AI, the rise in real-time payments will create headaches by providing more opportunities for both legitimate and illegitimate chargebacks to take place.
Insurance-as-a-Service company Insuritas has been acquired by VIU by HUB, a division of HUB International, one of the world’s largest insurance brokers.
The acquisition will expand Insuritas’ insurance product portfolio and leverage VIU by HUB’s advanced analytics platform to provide more personalized customer experiences.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Insurance-as-a-Service company Insuritas has been acquired by VIU by HUB, a division of HUB International, which is the fifth largest insurance broker in the world. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
VIU is a digital insurance company that offers a range of policies, including auto insurance, homeowners insurance, second home insurance, renters’ insurance, toy insurance, life insurance, umbrella insurance, financial security, and family plans and policies. The Chicago-based company provides users quotes quickly and offers a platform where clients can sync all their personal policies from across carriers in one place.
“This acquisition marks an exciting new chapter in our journey and will allow us to rapidly expand customized insurance solutions,” said Insuritas CEO Jeff Chesky in an emailed statement. “By joining forces with VIU by HUB, we are amplifying our ability to enhance [clients’] sales and service capabilities and resources with state-of-the-art digital analytics tools.”
Insuritas was founded in 1998 and has since raised $10 million. The Connecticut-based company’s unique model allows banks and credit unions to own and embed a digital insurance agency within their existing operations, without taking on any of the operational risk.
For Insuritas’ current agency clients, the acquisition is good news, as it will make available the widest selection of insurance products offered by the largest collection of insurance carriers of any independent agency complex in the U.S. Additionally, Insuritas will have access to VIU by HUB’s agent resources and will be able to combine VIU by HUB’s analytics platform with its embedded agency technology, providing end customers more personalized experiences.
The insurance subsector remains among the least disrupted in fintech, but that is beginning to change as digital-first insurtech companies like Insuritas and VIU by HUB drive innovation in the space. By leveraging embedded insurance models and advanced analytics, these firms are making strides in modernizing a traditionally slow-moving industry.
