Re, the world’s first blockchain-powered reinsurer, raises $14M seed round to build a decentralized global reinsurance market
SAN FRANCISCO, 28 September 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The launch of Re coincides with the announcement of a 14 million dollars seed round with participation from Tribe Capital, Defy, Exor, Stratos, Framework, Morgan Creek Digital, SiriusPoint and a number of prominent angel investors.
The protocol, built on the Avalanche blockchain, gives investors access to a massive and uncorrelated asset class: insurance premiums. While underwriters collectively go back 334 years to the inception of Lloyd’s London, the business remains opaque and inaccessible to most. Re aims to change that.
“The benefits Re brings to the market are multifaceted: We are building a decentralized global insurance transaction layer that settles any kind of insurance risk, in a way that is transparent to regulators, partners and investors; administrative overhead will be lower and cost-effective. savings will benefit insurers and policyholders; and finally for members who provide capital, they earn uncorrelated returns comparable to high interest rates.” said Karn Saroya, CEO of Re.
Res capital providers, or members, provide financial support to baskets of policies to earn insurance premiums and returns. Today, Re already supports thousands of drivers Texas and California and in the coming weeks will support thousands of small businesses across the United States. In recent months, Re has assessed more than 300 million dollars in potential premium from insurance programs. With the new financing, Re will expand its reinsurance pipeline.
Re works with distributed underwriting teams with deep domain expertise, or Syndicates, to assess the financial merits of insurance programs brought into the protocol. These teams tend to have a niche focus on specific industry segments and/or industries. They have expertise in pricing and disciplined underwriting, for which they need reinsurance.
Re’s main application will be built on Avalanche’s primary network, with private information stored on a subnet, creating greater transparency and flexibility by using the fastest smart contract platform in the industry. Subnets are custom, app-specific blockchains that can be tailored to an app’s exact needs. Landslide shot in September 2020ushered in a new era for blockchains with near-instant final transactions.
Arjun Sethico-founder and partner at Tribe Capital, which incubated Re under its Tribe Crypto Labs umbrella, added: “The opportunity for a decentralized approach to reinsurance is huge – there is almost a trillion in existing insurance profits to be tokenized, and a huge amount of capital on the sidelines that will start earning (re)insurance premiums in the near future. Re is ideally positioned to capture the growth of this new marketplace unlocked through blockchain technology.”
From a timing perspective, Re is at the perfect entry point to launch into a growing addressable market, with insurance premiums rising globally. Furthermore, the managing General Agent program area, where specialized teams create unique insurance products and do everything but accept the risk of loss, has continued to explode upwards to 70 billion dollars in the last year.
“We are proud to support Re through the Startup with Chainlink program in their mission to build a decentralized global reinsurance market that provides users with more transparency and delivers cost savings. By leveraging blockchain technology, smart contracts and oracle networks, Re can help connect the reinsurance market to DeFi- the area in a way that empowers the parties involved,” said Oliver BirchGTM Partnership Manager at Chainlink Labs.
Re is now inviting underwriters and actuaries to apply for syndicate roles on the protocol, having recently partnered with Joe Gaito and Jason Hoffman of Freedom Re Underwriters as the protocol’s first independent syndicate. Further, David Hampsonhas the former CEO of Willis Programs joined Re as a strategic advisor and independent director to guide reinsurance operations.
About Re
Re is a fully collateralized reinsurer subject to regulatory oversight and approval that connects alternative capital providers to a nearly $1T reinsurance market, providing investor access to an otherwise opaque asset class. The Re Protocol is a web3 application that drives a level of transparency around capital position and performance unmatched by traditional reinsurers for the benefit of partners, investors and regulators.
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