PERSPECTIVES
As investors, we are fortunate to have a wide-angle lens on the ecosystem. With our exposure, we have perspectives on what we think the world needs.
These perspectives will evolve, and may even be abandoned if we uncover something that moves our thinking. For now, here are just a few areas that excite us.
Portable benefits
There are 80 million Americans without employer-sponsored benefits, and 10.6 million US workers whose primary income comes from contract work. By 2027, it is estimated that half of US workers will be freelancing in some form. With this trend, we believe it is important for health/wellness and financial benefits to be customizable by workers, and able to support contributions from multiple employers. We believe these benefits should apply to workers that are full-time, part-time, contract, gig, and everything in between
Global identity verification platform
Many companies are required to verify the identity of their customers and suppliers. Each country has different rules for how this is done. We believe there is an opportunity to centralize this process so that insurance companies, wealth management firms, money remittance companies, lenders, and other companies can focus on providing the best service possible, rather than burning resources for standardized identity verification.
Invisible payments
The act of paying for something will change significantly. Our view is that payments will eventually become completely invisible. For example, after a pleasant meal with friends at a restaurant, you should be able to just get up from the table and walk away, while the payment happens in the background.
Insurance underwriting
Underwriting is a core component of insurance operations. We believe the process of asking endless questions and collecting fluid samples (for life insurance) should be eliminated. The industry can rely on high quality macro and micro data to assess risk, and proactively suggest the appropriate type and amount of insurance coverage. Data is the oxygen that can fuel more automation and efficiency in the adjudication process.
Commercial insurance
Business or commercial insurance is a massive market, but the process of obtaining a commercial insurance policy is still largely complex and manual. We believe that each player within the commercial insurance value chain can benefit from wider distribution of policies (especially to small and medium businesses) through digital means, greater automation of internal processes, and improved underwriting and claims processes.
Insurtech-as-a-Service
The proliferation of digital platforms are opening up new channels for distribution of insurance products. This opportunity will be fueled further by the transition of many insurers’ technology stacks to the cloud. We believe that there is an opportunity here for insurance-as-a-service platforms to enable insurers and digital platforms to easily create and embed simple insurance products and distribute them.
Convenience buttons
There are tremendous benefits to simplifying a complex task, especially if the task yields a highly valuable outcome. We are looking for solutions that take ordinarily complicated processes and abstract them behind a simple user experience: push a button and make something important happen in the real world.
Portable credit history/score
When you move from one country to another, it’s usually very difficult to get a credit card, or a personal loan because your credit history doesn’t follow you to your destination. We believe that an assessment of your creditworthiness should not be geographically bound.
Frictionless
real estate experiences
Buying a property is an extremely cumbersome process. We counted up to ten people/entities involved in the purchase of a new home: buyer, seller, buying agent, selling agent, mortgage broker, lender, lawyer, appraiser, home inspector, contractor. We think this process should be cohesive and a lot simpler.
If you are excited by any of these ideas and you are already working on developing a solution, please contact us. If you are building a different business that will disrupt the financial services sector, we want to hear from you too!