Swiss Re, a reinsurance company based in Zurich has selected six startups for its first batch of InsurTech accelerator programme.
Swiss Re Group is a wholesale provider of reinsurance, insurance and other insurance-based forms of risk transfer. The group also has offices in Mumbai and Bangalore in India.
InsurTech accelerator programme is a global fintech accelerator programme conducted by Swiss Re. The group has identified three technology themes for the programme including Internet of Things (home, industrial, health and motor), Systems of engagement (innovative distribution channels and models, digital assistants/ Robo advisors etc.) and Smart analytics (application of deep learning and machine learning across insurance value chain). The programme will be conducted for 16 weeks.
Here Is The List Of 6 Selected Startups
eKincare
Founded In: 2014
Founder(s): Kiran Kalakuntla, Dinesh Koka
Funding: $629K from investors like Bitkemy Ventures, Maheshwari Investment, HNIs including Anshoo Gaur, RamaKrishna Reddy and Sandeep Seerapu
eKincare is an online platform that enables users to monitor their critical medical information and all health records by keeping them on the cloud. This enables the users to access the dashboard from anywhere and anytime by using a PC or a mobile device. The startup has a patent pending technology that gathers medical results and provides a single repository for users to store all their healthcare episodes.
GOQii
Founded In: 2014
Founder(s): Vishal Gondal
Funding: $13.4 Mn from investors like Edelweiss Financial Services, New Enterprise Associates, angel investors like Neeraj Arora and Vijay Shekhar Sharma
Wearable tech startup GOQii is a smart wearable helps in tracking your steps, sleep and any physical activity. It has a combination of advanced wearable technology, experts, coaches and karma. The company’s app can integrate with 35 major fitness bands including Jawbone, Fitbit, Garmin, Moov, Misfit and Sony. Users have to decide on a goal and choose a coach to guide them on the application.
Arya.ai,
Founded In: 2013
Founder(s): Vinay Kumar Sankarapu, Deekshith Marla
Funding: $750K in seed funding from Venture Nursery, YourNest Angel Fund
Artificial intelligence (AI) startup Arya.ai was founded with a mission to make intelligent machines assist humans in faster and effective decision-making process in their professions. It claims to have created first AI system prototype within medicine and defence domains in India while exploring research solutions using drones.
Niki.ai
Founded In: 2015
Founder(s): Shishir Modi, Sachin Jaiswal, Keshav Prawasi, Nitin Babel,
Funding: Undisclosed amount from investors like Rata Tata, Ronnie Screwvala
Niki.ai is an AI-powered bot that lets users order anything through a chat interface. It leverages the technology of natural language processing and machine learning to converse with the customers over a simple chat interface, and places their orders within seconds with the partner businesses. The startup has partnered with more than 25 brands having a user base of 40,000 spread across India.
Touchkin
Founded In: 2015
Founder(s): Jo Aggarwal, Ramakant Vempati
Funding: $400K in seed funding from angel investors like Alok Mittal, Amit Gupta, Anuj Srivastava, Himanshu Aggarwal, Raghunandan G, Puneet Agarwal
Proactive healthcare provider Touchkin is a predictive health care provider for elders that uses mobile-based social sensing to enable proactive personalised care, thus bringing help to those who need it, from care experts or families. Touchkin’s mobile app StayClose is used to virtually see family’s well-being and trigger alerts if their activity patterns indicate something is wrong.
Datasigns Technologies
Founded In: 2016
Founder(s): Anand Barua, Monish Anand
Funding: NA
Datasigns is a risk platform that forges traditional & non-traditional data to facilitate financial services to those outside the formal system. It helps financial organisations access new and underserved market.
Alok Kumar, Managing Director of Swiss Re Bangalore said, “Managing risk has been our core business for more than 150 years but we have never stood still. We are continuing to collaborate and learn so that we can create smarter solutions with our clients, helping the world rebuild, renew and move forward. And, for the startups, this is a great platform to test new ideas, learn and come up with solutions to close the protection gap. They will also get to understand how a leading wholesale provider of reinsurance, insurance and other insurance-based forms of risk transfer can continually innovate.”
As part of the accelerator programme, startups will have access to the global expertise and insights from Swiss Re, mentors from the industry, and technical enablement to work on challenging global insurance problems. At the end of sixteen weeks, startups will present their learnings and achievements to Swiss Re’s global leadership, ecosystem partners and potential investors.
