Can insurance companies keep up with tomorrow’s transportation realities?
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“Transportation is changing faster than ever, but the traditional insurance industry can’t keep up”
That’s the opportunity Ed Leon Klinger intended to capitalise on with Flock – a company backed by Octopus Ventures, leading its $38 million Series B round.
From the proliferation of electric vehicles and ridesharing, to the emergence of autonomous driving, the transportation industry is undeniably advancing at pace. However, traditional vehicle insurance companies often still use decades-old systems and can be slow in innovating and adapting new technologies.
Flock aims to bridge this gap between the current motor insurance industry and the future’s transportation realities for commercial vehicle fleets. Flock uses new technologies, focusing on connected vehicles, gathering real time data, and promoting safe driving by lowering insurance rates for good practices, while at the same time, learning how to mitigate risks and decrease the number of road accidents.
Find out how they’re doing it, why Octopus Ventures led its $38 million Series B round, and how you can invest in similar companies through Octopus Ventures EIS Service.
Important: The information on this website is for experienced investors. It is not advice nor a research or personal recommendation to invest. If you’re unsure, please seek advice. EIS investments are high risk and you could lose all the money you invest.
More about Flock
Motor insurance company Flock uses car data networks to understand, quantify, and mitigate risks in driving. In a nutshell, it incentivises operators of connected commercial vehicle fleets for safer driving by lowering insurance premiums and providing real-time safety insights. It does so using telematics, a technology which can provide information on the speed, location, driving conditions, and even seatbelt use, i.e. it is like a blueprint of all aspects of a car’s operation.
What sets Flock apart from traditional insurers is its focus on gathering data, understanding and mitigating risks - and not solely paying claims as they come. The company believes this is the future direction of the insurance industry.
Flock also provides tools to help fleet managers make their fleets safer including notifications if cars are being used for unauthorised purposes, guidance on safer routes, and identification of sources of the fleets’ risk levels, rewarding them for making safety improvements. In fact, Flock has reported it has reduced its customers’ crash frequency by 10%.
In addition, the company’s business model uses the data it collects to help customers optimise their operations over time.
Since its Series A funding in 2021, the company has grown its revenues 30x. Today, Flock is used by more than 600 commercial fleet customers, including Jaguar Land Rover and one-third of the UK’s independent Amazon fleets. Flock’s momentum and remarkable growth (over the last 12 months in particular), in Octopus Ventures' view, made it leap on the opportunity to join them for their business’s growth journey.
Why did Octopus Ventures invest?
Octopus Ventures, best known for managing the UK’s largest VCT – Octopus Titan VCT, led Flock’s $38 million Series B round this year.
It invested in Flock for three main reasons:
- The technology: Octopus Ventures believes this technology is revolutionary and will make car fleets safer in the long run.
- The founders: Octopus has been watching founders – Ed Leon Klinger and Antton Peña, for years and has been “blown away by their thoughtfulness, adaptability and ability to attract incredible talent”.
- The mission: the company not only aims to become the leading insurance company for connected and autonomous vehicles, but also make the world a quantifiably safer place.
Flock has a vision that can make the world safer not just for today’s vehicles but for the connected and autonomous vehicles of tomorrow. That vision of changing the world for the better is one we share at Octopus Ventures. That and the brilliant opportunity that Leon Klinger, Antton Pena and their team are seizing are why we’re backing Flock to become a category-defining company in the fleet insurance space.
Malcolm Ferguson, Partner at Octopus Ventures
Want to invest using EIS in companies similar to Flock?
Octopus Ventures EIS Service is currently open for investment. You will get exposure to similar companies, albeit not Flock itself.
The fund employs the same investment strategy as Octopus Titan VCT and aims to invest in high-growth early-stage companies that develop innovative technologies and operate in large and fast-growing markets.
The team only considers investing in businesses it believes can deliver returns of 10x on the initial investment (although the target return is lower for follow-on investments). Note, alongside the high expected return, the team also expects some of the investments to fail as these are high-risk businesses.
Wealth Club aims to make it easier for experienced investors to find information on – and apply for – investments. You should base your investment decision on the offer documents and ensure you have read and fully understand them before investing. The information on this webpage is a marketing communication. It is not advice or a personal or research recommendation to buy any of the investments mentioned, nor does it include any opinion as to the present or future value or price of these investments. It does not satisfy legal requirements promoting investment research independence and is thus not subject to prohibitions on dealing ahead of its dissemination.
Octopus Ventures EIS Service
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