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Technology
Cuvva, the app-based insurance provider that began life offering pay-as-you-go driving cover but has since expanded to also sell travel insurance, has raised £15 million in Series A funding.
Backing comes from RTP Global, Breega, and Digital Horizon, joining existing investors LocalGlobe, Techstars Ventures, Tekton and Seedcamp. A number of angels also joined the round, including Dominic Burke, the CEO of Jardine Lloyd Thompson, and Faisal Galaria, the former chief strategy and investments officer of GoCompare.
Launched in 2016 when founder Freddy Macnamara (pictured) become frustrated he couldn&t let others drive his car intermittently because of lack of insurance cover, Cuvva was an early pioneer of pay-as-you-go car insurance.
The idea, which was easier explained than done, was to make it possible to insure a car only when it was being driven, and therefore be cheaper for low mileage drivers, and via an app and access to the DVLA database, make it easier to on-board new drivers for pay-as-you-drive cover.
The insurtech still offers hourly car insurance but its product line has since been expanded to daily covery, as well as a product specifically aimed at learner drivers. In addition, Cuvva entered the travel insurance space, no doubt spotting overlap with its presumably younger, millennial demographic.
To that end, Cuvva says it will use the new capital to launch a new pay-monthly motor product in early 2020 that it says could cut average annual bills for car owners &significantly&. It will do this by cutting out various middle people, including brokers and comparison websites, which it says charge insurers about £70 on each policy sold.
&Unlike legacy insurers, Cuvva will not charge a fee to spread payments over the year and it will not penalise loyal customers with dual pricing,& says the startup. Cuvva also says it will offer the same savings, whether you are signing up as a new customer or a returning customer, and won&t charge admin fees to alter personal details registered with your policy.
Cue canned statement from Macnamara: &I started Cuvva when I couldn&t find flexible insurance to help me share my car. Four years on from launch we are still discovering how big the problem we are solving really is. We&re now selling 3% of all UK motor insurance policies but we&ve got so much further to go. Cuvva is going to be the place where you buy all your insurance, all through our mobile app&.
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Read more: Cuvva raises £15M Series A to launch flexible monthly car insurance
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Penta, the Berlin-based business banking challenger that also now operates in Italy, has partnered with BBVA-backed card reader company SumUp in a bid to attract more offline businesses.
Up until recently, Penta had been targeting digital businesses, such as startups and e-commerce SMEs, but has since re-positioned itself for wider business banking appeal.
By partnering with a POS provider offering easy card reader-enabled payments, the German challenger bank wants to extend that of offline, such as restaurants, craftsman, healthcare and architects.
Specifically, Penta says businesses can order a SumUp Card Reader via Penta, and in doing so will save money on the initial SumUp setup fee and be able to seamlessly integrate SumUp-powered payments with their Penta account.
They&ll also get access to the existing Penta features, such as being able to open a business banking account entirely digitally, issue multiple payment cards, grant limits and permissions per card for staff, facilitate expense management and integrating with popular accounting tools.
In future, the SumUp integration is planned to go deeper. This will include the ability to use SumUp payments data to forecast future sales and feed into a businesses credit worthiness when they seek a loan.
&One request that we&ve had since day one has been for our customers to easily and quickly accept card payments, so we are very proud to be able to offer this with our newest partner SumUp,& says Penta CEO Marko Wenthin in a statement.
Adds James Henry, Head of Sales and Partnerships at SumUp: &By cooperating with Penta, we will enable even more small and medium-sized companies to digitize their business and make the payment experience as convenient as possible for their customers. Penta, with its growing customer base of companies, is the ideal partner for us to reach the broad mid-market&.
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Amazon has revealed the world’s first machine learning-enabled music keyboard at AWS re:Invent 2019, the company’s big cloud conference.
Amazon DeepComposer is a compact 32-key music keyboard (as opposed to a QWERTY one you type on) that plugs into your PC, which is coupled with powerful machine learning technology.
The idea is you play a melody or
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Don't worry if you didn't get a chance to scoop up an iPad deal this Cyber Monday, there are plenty of sales still live offering an excellent range of tablets for less. There's still a healthy stock of iPad Pro, Air, and Mini models about - all still carrying their seasonal sales price tags. While certain models like the flagship 2019 iPad have
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The age of cyber warfare is upon us, and the threat of cybercrime to businesses continues to multiply by the day. Simply having cloud antivirus is no longer enough. The imperative to defend is stronger than ever. But what are the likely implications for 2020, and what new cards do cybercriminals hold in their deck?
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With Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us, we enter a lull where deals usually become rarer.
The race for the most affordable SSD, however, continues unabated, with Teamgroup cementing its status as the cheapest 0.96TB/1TB SSD ever. Until December 9, Newegg is selling the GX1 for $76.99, down from a suggested price of $98.99 and its former
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Read more: The Teamgroup GX1 is the cheapest 1TB SSD in the world
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