The insurance FinTech Marshmallow got some sweet news this week, as it reached a valuation of over $1.25 billion to become the U.K.’s newest tech unicorn.
According to the company’s blog, the valuation came after an $85 million Series B funding round, bringing the total amount raised by the company in the last year to more than $100 million.
“From the start, our aim was to shake up the outdated insurance industry,” the company said in a blog post on Wednesday (Sept. 8). “And we’ve done just that. Using technology, data and AI, we’ve built innovative products that make insurance cheaper, faster and fairer for everyone. Especially underserved communities. But with this additional funding, we have the chance to take on even bigger industry challenges. We’re going to reinvent what insurance means altogether.”
To Marshmallow, that means offering new products and services to more customers — the company says it has sold more than 100,000 policies — while also expanding into other lines of insurance and into new markets throughout Europe. That will mean expanding its team. Marshmallow employed fewer than 100 people when the year began, and now hopes to hire an additional 400-plus over the next two years.
Founded in 2017 by twin brothers Alexander and Oliver Kent-Braham, Marshmallow bills itself as “car insurance with a conscience,” aimed at insuring a diverse customer base, such as migrant drivers, at affordable prices.
Read more: UK Home to a Dozen Tech ‘Decacorns’ Worth $10B or More
The company’s unicorn status comes amid a larger tech boom in the U.K., which has seen the number of companies worth more than $10 billion — so-called “decacorns” — more than double this year. Newly minted decacorns include the FinTech Revolut, the payments platform Checkout.com and the online grocery provider Ocado. Britain can boast at least a dozen of these giant companies, third to the U.S. and China.
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