Written by James D'Mello
A major step forward for London-based insurtech making essential protection accessible with embedded life and income insurance
Only six months after completion of its pre-seed round, Eleos has raised venture capital investment of
£3.25 Million in a seed round led by Fuel Ventures and Indico Capital.
Founded in 2022, Eleos has made rapid progress in consolidating its position as the UK’s only provider of fully digital life insurance and income protection products and is on course to pass the £1 million revenue mark by the end of 2024. Eleos was founded to address two basic shortcomings in the insurance industry: its inability to communicate the importance of financial protections like income protection and life insurance and its difficulty in developing fully digital solutions.
By partnering with leading financial brands Eleos is revolutionising consumer access to important
financial protections. Using its proprietary full stack B2B2C solution with APIs and white-labelled journeys the company makes integration simple with no additional costs. This enables its partners to benefit from new revenue streams, enhanced customer retention, and full regulatory coverage under the company’s FCA authorisation. Currently Eleos’s partners include the credit-building specialists Loqbox and CreditLadder and the flexible loans providers CreditSpring and Updraft.
At the same time, consumers have come to expect more from their insurers than just simple insurance policies, so Eleos’s customer attraction and retention plan involves offering its customers several free ancillary benefits to offset the cost of their insurance premiums. These include a 24/7 remote GP (General Practitioner) service, mental health support and a scheme that gives cashback on everyday purchases. Partnership with Eleos offers companies the advantages of this high-value marketing
strategy.
In the UK, the current penetration of life insurance is only 35% and for income protection just 6%.
Adoption rates of these essential protections have been slowly rising in recent years but this can be accelerated by raising awareness and improving access. This is the first element of Eleos’s mission.
As for digital solutions, even though it is common amongst traditional insurers for the customer journey to begin online, the existing model still relies on lengthy phone calls with agents and a protracted underwriting process. The customer experience is cumbersome and disjointed, with policies taking days to go live. Consumers expect to buy their financial products entirely online and on the platforms
they know and trust. This is the second element of Eleos’s mission.
Eleos’s CEO, Kiruba Shankar Eswaran, founded Zaask in Portugal, later selling it to Worten. He has also been responsible for successful start-ups and exits in the UK. Of Eleos’s seed round Kiruba says: “With our new funding we will launch more lines of insurance in the life and disability verticals and strike more distribution partnerships in the UK. Part of the funding is also earmarked to launch operations in the US.”
Mark Pearson, founder of Fuel Ventures, commented: “We’ve been looking for a way into the insurtech sector for a long time but to do that we need a team with specialist experience, an understanding of the challenges and access to a substantial market. With Eleos we’ve found all three and we believe their products encapsulate our thinking about the insurance space – giving people easy access on familiar platforms. We’re working together to make our shared vision of the future a reality and that’s why we’ve doubled down on our support for their growth and expansion.”
Stephan Morais, Managing General Partner of Indico Capital Partners, added “Indico is happy to keep supporting experienced founders such as the founders of Eleos. The insurtech market has plenty of room to grow and Eleos is targeting areas which are not only sizeable but overlooked by other current players globally”.
Operating in both the B2B and B2C sectors, Eleos is making substantial new sources of revenue accessible to its partners by addressing the deficit in personal financial security which leaves millions of people vulnerable to life’s toughest challenges.
This seed round builds substantially on previous funding from Fuel Ventures, Founders Factory, Insurtech NY, Magic Fund, and Indico Capital Partners.
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