The insurtech programme runs throughout the winter period, requires no participation fees and does not take equity as a prerequisite to joining. It aims to facilitate opportunities for pilots, POCS and new relationships between the 14 selected batch startups. Among this year’s attendees are startups that provide AI software, digital compliance, machine learning, marketing, cyber risk and management solutions to the insurance industry.

Plug and Play’s global ecosystem provides ample opportunity to the attending startups, and has a special focus on corporate partners, one of which is the recently acquired Baloise. “Plug and Play is offering us the chance to connect with new partners that are outside our core insurance business," said Sibylle Fischer, Manager of strategic venturing and startup scouting at Baloise. "We are delighted about our new partnership, which will help us to expand our ecosystem network." 

Munich Re, Generali, Versicherungskammer Bayern, Talanx, Irish Life, Willis Towers Watson, Swiss Re and Covea make up the other corporate partners.

The 14 startups participating in the Insurtech Europe programme are as follows:

1. Curiosity –using Mosaik software to help companies build AI-solutions for their unstructured text data.
2. DreamQuark – financial services can use, trust and control DreamQuark's AI to solve their day-to-day business challenges.
3. EasySend – a no-code smart form builder that empowers enterprises to quickly convert paper forms into compliant digital processes with deep analytics in less than two weeks.
4. Glassbox – helps Insurers remain digitally compliant whilst keeping their customers happy and safe, with the most complete and secure digital experience orchestration solution on the market.
5. SlidePiper – building AI for Customer Onboarding, KYC and Compliance Automation for the financial industry.
6. Vizru – delivers business AI process automation, data visualisation and collaboration in real time across cloud and on-premise systems.
7. Voiceitt – automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology that uses AI to help people with speech impairments communicate.
8. YUKKA Lab – provides a unique real-time currency for the sentiment of every company, topic and industry through augmented language intelligence.
9. Aktivo – seamlessly captures real-time health and lifestyle data from a smartphone and generates a digital biomarker that predicts health and longevity.
10. Cobee – a one-stop SaaS solution for companies to manage all their employee benefits by providing them with a simple app and a VISA card to consume their products in a flexible manner.
11. Knexus AI – a platform that enables brands to deliver best and latest content (social, marketing and product) in real time, making it hyper relevant to drive customer decisions across owned digital channels.
12. Cytegic – with four US Granted Patents, Cytegic's cyber risk platform automates cyber risk quantification and management across the entire insurance and risk value chain.
13. Fixico – an online platform that offers a new and fully digital way to handle car damage claims for insurance and fleet companies.
14. Previsico – enables real-time actionable flood warnings using the latest weather predictions to make street-level flood nowcasts and forecasts.

Robert Pechholz, Munich Lead and Corporate Partnerships Manager for Insurtech Europe at Plug and Play, commented: "We are truly honoured to work with so many major European Insurance players, and believe we offer our batch startups an incredibly unique opportunity. We look forward to seeing what we can accomplish on this programme with the energy levels so high.”

The startups will remain part of the ecosystem even after the programme's EXPO Day on 5 February 2020.