Wefox

After graduating from university, Julian was involved in two start-ups (Groupon and DeinDeal) but had always wanted to go into insurance. He and his co-founder, Fabian came up with the concept of digitalising the process, and created a platform that connects insurance providers, brokers and customers. Rather than bypass human brokers entirely, WeFox lets independent brokers on-board their existing customers onto the platform to help deliver a better experience and more easily manage their clients’ coverage.

Efficiencies are achieved through a degree of automation, helping a broker scale the admin side of their business while also ensuring customers get the most appropriate coverage. From a consumer’s perspective, the Wefox app and website also acts as a “digital” wallet, where they can store details of the various insurance coverage to which they have subscribed.

The company launched in Switzerland in 2015 with a few former colleagues from previous start-ups, and since then it has become Europe’s leading InsureTech company, commercially growing more than two times year on year. The lead OMERS Ventures partner, Henry Gladwyn invested in its seed round in 2015 while at a previous company, so knew Julian and Fabian well, which enabled OV to join the company's Series B. OMERS Ventures now sits on the board and is a significant shareholder.