‘Insurance is still too reliant on paperwork, underinsurance is far too common and fees are often higher than they should be,’ says chief executive
Meshed, an artificial intelligence (AI) insurance broker, has raised £950,000 in pre-seed funding with help from Aviva.
The London and Glasgow-based startup, which claims to be the first AI-native insurance broker, serves small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and uses AI agents to automate quoting, insurer chasing and policy administration.
It will use its latest funding to scale its technology and expand its team of engineers, data scientists and insurance experts.
This will further advance its platform’s capabilities in predictive analytics, risk management and customer experience.
Chief executive Mark Costello, who previously founded tech-enabled broker Taveo, said: “After nearly 20 years in the industry, I’ve seen just how little has changed. Insurance is still too reliant on paperwork, underinsurance is far too common and fees are often higher than they should be.
“We built Meshed to change that, to bring costs down for SMEs, give them the right protection and make the whole process faster, simpler and more transparent.”
The round was led by venture capital fund Haatch, with participation from Aviva through Founders Factory and Exponential Science Foundation, and angel investors.
Arslan Hannani, chief innovation officer at Aviva, explained that the insurer wanted to back emerging players that could improve SME protection.
He said: “We always want to be on the leading edge of enabling our customers to protect themselves as much as they possibly need to and can. In order to do that, we need to keep finding the latest and the brightest startups.
“When it came to Meshed, it was pretty easy for us to get on board.”
’Rebuilding the entire insurance broking stack’
Meshed has secured agreements with 51 insurers and recently gained regulatory approval from the FCA as an appointed representative.
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The broker said its AI tools could provide proactive, real-time coverage updates as businesses change, reducing the risk of underinsurance – a problem it claimed affected around 80% of SMEs.
Vincent Liu, co-founder and chief technology officer, said: “We’re pretty much rebuilding the entire insurance broking stack so it’s AI-native, including the underlying data infrastructure, schemas and integrations. This allows us to let our AI agents loose and ultimately reduce the quoting experience from one hour to nine minutes.”
Co-founder and chief operating officer Jake Wells added: “The traditional insurance brokerage model is broken. Brokers spend too much time buried in paperwork and chasing information, rather than advising and supporting clients.
”Our AI agents change this fundamentally, handling everything from quote generation to policy management, giving human brokers back the most valuable asset they have – time.”
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