Home insurance firm Luko snags Series A

Luko, a Paris-based home insurance company, has raised 20 million euros in Series A funding. Accel led the round with participation from Founders Fund and Speedinvest.

PRESS RELEASE

Paris, 19th November 2019

Luko, the home insurance company, announces that it has raised a €20 million Series A led by leading global venture capital firm Accel, with participation from Founders Fund and Speedinvest.

Home insurance has become a 100 billion euro industry in Europe, but its opaque terms and conditions, multi-stage and elongated processes and ‘guilty before proven innocent’ approach to claims have eroded consumers’ trust. On average, after the experience of making a home insurance claim, 40% of consumers choose to change provider. In addition, the industry has been slow to embrace technology and move online, failing to provide the experiences consumers have come to expect from other services.

Founded in 2017 in Paris by Raphael Vullierme and Benoit Bourdel, Luko has customer service at its heart, providing simple, transparent insurance and fast home repair. Its online platform has transformed the insurance experience: it takes two minutes to obtain coverage, two hours to receive payment for a claim and two days for damage to be repaired. Gone are the days of waiting days or weeks for repairs while balancing life’s other commitments.

Currently offering flat and home insurance for individuals and landlords in France, Luko has attracted more than 10,000 customers in its first 10 months of operation. It is now Europe’s fastest-growing insurance company, having seen strong organic growth through word of mouth from happy customers, who are hungry for a new option in a staid industry.

While other neo-insurance companies are focused on offering traditional insurance cover through digital means like an app, Luko is focused on creating insurance 3.0, a new product category that goes way beyond coverage. Luko is developing proprietary home protection technology, so it can reinvent homecare and move insurance from a post-incident, claims-based model, to avoiding home accidents to begin with. The technology will monitor a home’s front door, water supply pipe and electric meter, and machine learning will analyse this data to help prevent floods, fires and burglary.

Raphael Vullierme said: “We believe consumers need fairer insurance options that they can clearly understand and that will bring them peace of mind. While customer churn is traditionally an industry problem, Luko’s is nearly nil, and our Net Promoter Score is five times the industry average.

“This is the first step to our true endgame, avoiding home accidents altogether. We believe the future of homecare is in effectively protecting homes, and this investment will help us get there faster. We will use the new funding to accelerate our home protection technology development, expand from France across Europe and develop additional HomeCare Services.”

As part of Luko’s mission to transform the insurance industry for a better society, the company charges a flat fee, which is used for claims management, operational costs and to pay claims. At the end of a year, if there is money left over, Luko donates it to charities chosen by its customers through its Giveback programme. It received BCorp certification in June 2019.

Additionally, as part of the Series A round, all participating investors agreed to sign Luko’s social and environmental impact mission, to accept that Luko won’t trade its mission and impact for growth.

Luca Bocchio, who led the investment for Accel and will join the board, said: “Insurance is still largely a very traditional industry. With only eight per cent online penetration, the whole industry is poised for change. Consumers have suffered long enough with poor home insurance options, and Luko is bringing a new option to market with fairness at its core. With an ambitious team, a sleek product, impressive technology under development and strong customer love, Luko will change the equation for millions of home insurance customers across Europe, as it pioneers an end-to-end homecare solution.”

About Luko
Luko has reinvented home insurance with social responsibility and technology. It is the number 1 neo-insurance company in France, insuring more than 15,000 homes, and the fastest growing insurtech company in Europe.

Beyond a simple insurance contract, Luko aims to move insurance from a reactive claims-based model to a prevention model with its proprietary technology.

Co-founders Raphaël Vullierme, a serial entrepreneur, and Benoît Bourdel brought together their expertise to create a company that has a positive and concrete impact on society, which was recognised by BCorp certification in July 2019. They have since been joined by a strong team working on machine learning, hardware, UX, behavioral economics and operations from leading companies such as Facebook, BCG, Axa, Doctolib and Airbnb.

About Accel
Accel is a leading venture capital firm that partners with exceptional founders with unique insights, from inception through all phases of private company growth. Atlassian, Algolia, Avito, Celonis, Cloudera, Crowdstrike, Deliveroo, DJI, Dropbox, Etsy, Facebook, Flipkart, Funding Circle, Kayak, Kry, QlikTech, Rovio, Slack, Shift Technology, Spotify, Supercell, UiPath and WorldRemit are among the companies the firm has backed over the past 35+ years. The firm seeks to understand entrepreneurs as individuals, appreciate their originality and play to their strengths. Because greatness doesn’t have a stereotype. For more, visit www.accel.com, www.facebook.com/accel or www.twitter.com/accel.

About Founders Fund
Founders Fund invests in the world’s most important and valuable companies across all sectors and stages. The firm has been an early backer of some of the most impactful companies of the past decade, including SpaceX, Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb, Stripe, Palantir and Oscar Health Insurance. Founders Fund pursues a founder-friendly investment strategy, providing maximum support with minimum interference. For more information, visit www.foundersfund.com.

About Speedinvest
Speedinvest is a pan-European venture capital fund with €230M under management and offices in London, Berlin, Vienna, Munich and San Francisco. Employing a vertical investment structure, we fund innovative early-stage technology start-ups in the areas of Fintech, Insurtech, Healthtech, Consumer Tech, Marketplaces / Network Effects, Deep Tech and Industrial Tech. Speedinvest actively deploys its global network and dedicated team of in-house experts to support our portfolio companies, including with US market expansion. Find out more: www.speedinvest.com.