Venture capital firm InsurTech Gateway is targeting up to £30 million of investment for a new fund aimed at supporting tech startups in the insurance and reinsurance space.

The Gateway Fund has kicked off by investing £2.25 million in By Miles - UK-based provider of pay-per-mile car insurance - Floodflash - a provider of tech-enabled flood insurance for small business - Guardhog - a plug-in insurance provider for the gig-economy - and Insurdata - a technology provider for peril-specific exposure and risk data.

It is also leading the seed round of Humn, a dynamic pricing system for car fleet operators.

The new fund aims to open up opportunities for corporate investors to gain access to investment and underwriting deal-flow from the Gateway Incubator.

“The launch of the Gateway Fund will enable us to give startups an unprecedented level of support; from pre-pre seed, right the way through to series A and beyond.” Richard Chattock, chief executive of InsurTech Gateway.

Stephen Brittain, co-founder of InsurTech Gateway, added: “Through this new fund vehicle, our corporate investors have been able to gain access to fast-growth businesses from the incubator, and insights into their challenges and future potential that they cannot access easily elsewhere.”

Separately, Insurtech UK - the new alliance of 52 InsurTech startups, incumbent insurers and service partners - has entered into a partnership with the UK's Department for International Trade.

The minister for investment Graham Stuart signed a statement of intent this week, promising to work together on several initiatives to benefit the nascent industry.

This includes agreements such as developing a wider, more inclusive process for InsurTech firms to access and influence future government-led trade missions, gathering information about the UK InsurTech community to improve DIT’s ability to attract international interest into the UK market, coordinating webinars with foreign consulates to share intelligence about the regulatory landscape and commercial opportunities of international export markets, and creating a cross-industry working group to focus on issues that affect the UK-wide insurance sector.

“There is huge demand for British expertise overseas and UK InsurTech businesses have a real opportunity to make their mark on the global stage, to ensure the UK becomes a world-leader in this area," said Stuart.

Insurtech UK chairman Niall Barton added: “The initiatives outlined in the signed Statement of Intent will go a long way in increasing the opportunities afforded to UK InsurTechs, and it will allow the government to work much closely together with our sector to create a huge win for the UK economy.”

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