Hokodo, a London & Paris based technology start-up providing B2B marketplaces and accounting platforms with small business insurance via easy-to-integrate APIs has raised €1.9M in seed funding. Hokodo’s Seed round was led by Anthemis, Europe’s leading VC focused on Fintech and Insurtech investments.
Hokodo transforms traditional business insurance into a set of digital products delivered via APIs on partner platforms that small businesses already use for their day-to-day activities. Hokodo’s launch product is an invoice protection solution, insuring small and medium sized business owners against the risk that their customers will fail to pay an invoice when it falls due.
Richard Thornton, one of Hokodo’s founders stated: “Late payment of invoices is one of the leading causes of small business failure across Europe. In the UK, the Federation for Small Business estimates that about 30% of insolvencies are caused by the non-payment or late payment of receivables. The traditional insurance industry has commercial products to address this problem, however those products are not available to small and medium sized businesses.”
Hokodo’s insurance solutions will be delivered via APIs which can easily be integrated into accounting platforms, online marketplaces, and other platforms that business owners use on a daily basis. In this way, the platforms can embed insurance products into their existing customer journey when the need is front-of-mind, increasing the conversion rate exponentially. Hokodo’s scalable and highly automated pricing, underwriting and administration platform enables even very small businesses to be profitably served, helping to address severe under-insurance in this segment of the market.
Ruth Foxe-Blader, a Director at Anthemis said “Traditional FS providers cannot fully service online marketplaces, accounting platforms and other SME-focused technology businesses. In Hokodo we have found a team that really understands how to bridge the gap between insurance and technology. In our view, Hokodo’s robust, compliant tech stack and simple APIs represent a great idea whose time has come.”
While Hokodo is launching with an Invoice Protection solution, the team’s longer term ambition to close the small business insurance and financing gap goes much further. “When two businesses trade with each other, they are exposed to all sorts of risk — goods in transit; professional liability; liquidity; or performance risks — and Hokodo plans to help mitigate all those risks through Insurance-as-a-Service solutions.” said Hokodo co-founder, Louis Carbonnier.
“We are really thrilled to be partnering with Anthemis who are specialised in financial services and insurance. This fundraise will enable us to expand the already incredible team of data scientists, tech gurus and finance experts as well as continue development of our tech-stack, build out additional APIs and launch additional insurance products.” says Louis Carbonnier, co-founder at Hokodo. “Following our announcement last month of our underwriting partnership with SCOR Global P&C’s Channel syndicate, this fundraising round leaves us perfectly positioned to execute on our vision.”
Hokodo is part of Worry+Peace’s incubation network and has partnered with Centrifuge — an open, decentralised operating system to connect the financial supply chain.