From decision support to middle office to legal and risk management solutions, start-ups are targeting all parts of the asset management industry.
The potential for disruption is huge in France for the asset management industry, with the country hosting some of the world’s biggest players like Amundi AM ($1 730), Natixis IM ($942) or AXA IM ($830).
In this report, our research team went through the funding activity of AMtech start-ups in France and Europe. A brief comparison is also made regarding robo-advisors’ AuM in France and the rest of Europe.
In partnership with La Place Fintech, the new Paris-based innovation hub that brings together all players in finance, the study gives you a detailed view of notable M&A deals and use cases on AI or blockchain technologies disrupting the asset management industry.
We used INVYO Analytics data to identify 54 private AMtech companies in France in each category of the value chain. These solutions are supporting asset managers in generating Alpha and are providing a new set of tools to better respond to clients expectations.
Key takeaways
🔸 France is currently hosting 54 AMtech start-ups, with 50% of them that are existing since more than 5 years;
🔸 The biggest round was closed by risk management company Tinubu Square with a massive €53M raised last October 2017;
🔸 Based on our estimates, robo-advisors in France raised a total of €24M+ to date, far less important than their peers in the UK (€300M+) or Germany (€100M+);
🔸 Most represented categories in Asset Management technologies are Decision Support (16), Legal, Risk & Compliance (11) and Data Analytics (9);
>> Access the briefing for FREE by following this link
INVYO insights had the great pleasure to seat with Emmanuel Djengue, Innovation Director at RGAX, the transformation engine of the Reinsurance Group of America.
In this short interview, Emmanuel will share more details on RGAX’s coming Big ideas competition and gives us his view on the impact of innovation in life and health insurance.
About Emmanuel Djengue
Emmanuel Djengue is the Innovation Director of RGAX Europe. He has been in the sector for several years with the firm intention of designing and developing innovative projects to offer a more attractive service. He wrote several published articles about Insurance digital transformation and has delivered over 20 workshops and presentations around Europe. It is declared “a millennial that believes in insurance” and promoter of “Make Insurance Sexier”.
Could you please introduce RGAX?
RGAX, the transformation engine of RGA, is putting the belief into practice that every potential barrier to innovation represents an opportunity for incumbents to step up and guide the conversation with new players. Our services are designed to facilitate carrier participation in the most exciting innovations of the day without the need for heavy capital investment. A key component of this is connecting carrier clients with talent and resources that will empower them to lead transformative change.
The Big Ideas contest is an incredible opportunity to tap into the entrepreneurial communities in Europe and expand our network of disruptive leaders available to help carriers make industry change happen.
Click on the picture to discover more about the Big Ideas Competition by RGAX
What are RGAX’s motivations behind bringing the Big Ideas competition to life?
At RGAX we believe that taking a truly collaborative approach to finding innovative solutions for our industry requires engaging the entire ecosystem.
“If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go together.”
I personally love this statement but it is also a big driver of the Big Ideas competition. The contest invites entrepreneurs, technologists, students, and innovators from across Europe to propose innovative solutions to improve life and health insurance as well as retirement markets. We will always be more impactful by thinking together compared to one person or organization going at it alone. By connecting the dots between several brilliant minds through this contest, we are creating an incredible opportunity to make a significant impact within the industry.
What will be the impact of innovation in your business model dedicated to life and health insurance?
We are in the midst of change. Up until now, product development proved to be the most important for organizations – the battle was over who owns the largest and fastest distribution network.
Today, we see how major tech companies and the “GAFA” (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) business model are impacting all industries, including our own. They design and invest in services and products that fit into their customer journey rather than only focusing on improving what they have in-house. As a result of their strategy, GAFAs share more than 55% in our digital user journey. More recently, insurance companies are getting inspired by this approach and moving towards this customer-centric strategy.
For instance, we launched a product using smart and dynamic data to link a life insurance policy to people’s movement (number of steps) with a market player in Spain. The customer receives a reward based on their physical activity. This is how we take part in their journey. From the moment they step out of bed to make coffee, we are already linked to their day and providing value. And, this additional data is providing new and different avenues to support patients and doctors. Used thoughtfully, this information can provide huge benefits to people.
Our role is to reflect on the great things happening in every industry and consider how we can implement it within our own portfolio to offer the best-in class solution. In the UK, for example, we invested in a startup which links elderly people to their relatives and caregivers, helping them live independently longer. This strategic investment underscores our vision of using innovation as a vehicle to solve real problems that people encounter, whenever and wherever it occurs. Prevention and support are key elements in our approach.
How will digitization support RGAX/RGA business activity?
We believe in meeting customer expectations that are formed by other industries. Independently of their age, financial power or beliefs, customers could be all categorized into the “Mobile Generation.” Customers naturally interact with digital devices 24/7 and expect our industry to offer solutions that fit in with their way of life. We need to transform our services and solutions to stay relevant.
Digitization is an enabler for us. It is helping us to better understand the client thanks to the data we are able to collect. We do not just use data collection to improve our services, we also have a department dedicated to Behavioral Economics. This analysis allows us to translate the data into meaningful information that helps us design products and services that can help make our clients healthier and more financially secure.
Moreover, digitization has required us to change the way we work. You cannot just copy and paste what was built in the past and expect it to resonate today. We have had to train and prepare to design new solutions for the new world. To stay fresh and keep moving forward, we constantly use design thinking concepts to challenge our ideas and be as accurate as possible when defining new solutions.
In other words, digitization has helped us to create and think differently. We look forward to being part of the next wave of insurance innovation.
Join Invyo Insights at the Bank + FinTech 2019 organized by EFMA on 2-3rd April 2019 in Barcelona, Spain.
Bank + FinTech 2019 is organized by EFMA, the global and largest network of banks in the world (more than 3000 financial institutions are members, chaired by Citi), that facilitates connections among decision-makers in the financial services ecosystem (bankers, insurers, Fintech, regtech…).
Bank + FinTech selected for you the crème de la crème couples Bank + Fintechs, who will share their practices to inspire and allow you to benchmark yourself.
You can see few other speakershere:
Benoit Legrand, Chief Innovation Officer & CEO at ING
Laurent Herbillon, Director Open Innovation at BNP Paribas
Fernando Lardies, Head of Network Banking at Banco Santander
Banks and Fintechs that seized the strategic importance of collaboration will be presenting their successful partnership stories and how they complement each other:
The conferences will be conducted around key topics such as:
Who will ultimately take the lead in the banks/Fintech dance?
Can banks convincingly demonstrate the appropriate technical savvy to their customers that can effectively differentiate them in a crowded marketplace?
What roles will legacy financial technology providers eventually play as smaller and more nimble competitors continue to proliferate?
Will there finally be a capabilities convergence of banks and fintech that meaningfully and positively impacts their respective businesses?
Invyo Insights is glad to come to this event as a media partner. We will forward you with daily live news so that you can follow the best of Bank + FinTechif you did not have the chance to come directly to Barcelona to attend the event.
In this brief, you will get the funding activity of all European FinTech start-ups during 2018. A brief overview is also shared on the most funded Fintech and the most active VC investors in the industry.
We partnered with the Fintech Forum, a leading Fintech hub in Continental Europe, to provide you with a year in review of all the major announcements made in Fintech at a European level.
Out of 3,500+ indexed FinTech companies in Europe, the report also highlights interesting trends like the top 3 most funded start-ups in each category.
Key takeaways
🔸 Out of the top 10 most funded companies in Fintech, 60% of them are based in the United Kingdom;
🔸 Netherlands is positioned second in Europe driven by Adyen’s IPO ($8,3B). Sweden positions on the third place driven by iZettle’s acquisition by PayPal ($2,2B);
🔸 Digital banking was the hottest segment for Fintech, with nearly 50% (in value) of total investments caught during 2018;
🔸 Other sectors like Insurtech and Crypto are still in their early-days compared to its peers in the US or Asia;
>> Access the briefing for FREE by following this link
Join Invyo Insights (ex-Techfoliance) next February the 12-15th in London for another edition of Finovate Europe 2019.
Finovate Europe 2019 is one of the most important Fintech event in Europe where cutting-edge fintech demos and real world applications are highlighted by business leaders and hundreds of financial institutions that have a passion for change.
For this year edition, Finovate Europe 2019 is gathering more than 1200+ senior attendees, 120+ speakers, and 300+ major financial institutions coming from 50 countries.
For this year’s session, Finovate Europe 2019 is expected to be even bigger with more than 240+ C-Level attendees. During the four days event will be featured 60+ innovative fintech companies from across the world, who will each have just 7 minutes to demo their latest innovations.
The conferences will be conducted around key topics such as:
Invyo Insights is glad to come to this event as a data partner. We will forward you with daily live news so that you can follow the best of Finovate Europe 2019 if you did not have the chance to attend the event.
The Scottish FinTech ecosystem shows a steady growth in the number of companies and a consolidation in its organizations on the background of a strong governmental support.
Scotland has been built on a strong heritage and world-class capabilities across the Financial Services sector – from banking and asset management, to technology and data-driven innovation.
Education is a key driver for FinTech in Scotland
Among the most highly-educated country in Europe, Scotland also offers an experienced, flexible and tech-savvy workforce and a strong output of highly skilled graduates (Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Blockchain, Data).
“The primary reason we invested in Scotland is talent. In Glasgow, we can tap into talent from the universities across central Scotland including Glasgow, Strathclyde and Edinburgh, amongst others. The support that we’ve had from the government and Scottish Enterprise has also been very strong.” – Stephen Flaherty, Manging Director of J.P. Morgan
Edimbourgh is a solid yet discret financial place compared to London and a vibrant fintech ecosystem, among the most dynamic in Europe. The force of Scotland is its large cluster with different cities who are HQ’d.
A strong public vs private Fintech couple
With the Brexit, Scottish autorities have been working closely with the private sector (banks, technology companies, asset managers and Financial institutions etc.) to design a strong and attractive fintech ecosystem.
Two organizations also appear to play a key role: the Scottish development international and Fintech Scotland (since 2017). FinTech Scotland was born out of the collaboration between the private and public sector around one objective of growth and employment to secure Scotland’s place as one of the leading fintech centres.
According to its newly elected CEO, Stephen Ingledew:
“Our aim is to move Scotland into the FinTech‘Champions League’ by securing a top 10 place in the Global FinTech Hub Federation by 2020. It’s an ambitious target, but I’m convinced that Scotland’s heritage in data, in academia and in the growth of the tech sector will allow us to achieve our goal.”
By providing a collaborative and connected ecosystem, Scotland has everything to attract national and international entrepreneurs as well as talent pools.
FinTech Scotland – Key Data
Scotland is the UK’s 2nd largest Financial cluster after London.
86,600 people are employed across Banking, Asset Management, Asset Servicing, Insurance and Life & Pensions.
Over 10,000 students graduate from courses in Mathematical Sciences, Computer Science and Engineering & Technology every year.
5 Scottish universities in the world’s top 200. That’s more than any other country per head of population apart from Switzerland.
FinTech is a high priority for the Scottish Government as highlighted within the Government’s Programme for Scotland.
>> Access more data on FinTech in Scotland by following this link
