FinTech startup Urban Jungle has closed a £1m Seed.
The company will use the funds to improve the way in which renters can obtain home insurance.
Urban Jungle’s round was led by Rob Devey, the former CEO of Prudential UK and HBOS insurance, who will also act as a board advisor.
Founded by Jimmy Williams and Greg Smyth, Urban Jungle will leverage machine learning to improve risk scoring.
Williams spoke about the round’s closure: “This investment marks a big step towards our mission to build an insurance provider that customers love. Through 2017, we focused on building a business that our customers can rely on 100% when something goes wrong.
“In 2018 we’ll vastly increase the choice of products for our customers, and make all of our products even easier to use. We’re delighted to have brought on board such a high quality group of investors who can help us accelerate towards these goals,” he added.
Williams, also the CEO, was a former insurance consultant. Smyth, the CTO, comes from a software engineering background and has built teams at Google and Facebook.
Devey, who has backed Urban Jungle twice, said he was delighted to support the startup again.
“I’m very excited about the huge opportunity to transform the insurance industry using technology, and think this team is superbly well placed to capitalise on that. They have proven their ability to execute to a very highly quality over the past year, and I’m confident that they will only accelerate from here.”
Urban Jungle was set up in late 2016 and is regulated by the FCA.
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