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Flock announces $17 million Series A fundraise led by Social Capital to help reinvent insurance for connected vehicles

Flock has raised $17 mil­lion in fund­ing to super­charge its expan­sion into new geo­gra­phies and prod­uct lines — mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone as it builds a glob­al, ful­ly dig­i­tal insur­ance com­pa­ny for con­nect­ed and autonomous vehi­cles.

The round was led by Social Cap­i­tal, the Cal­i­forn­ian invest­ment firm run by renowned tech investor Chamath Pal­i­hapi­tiya, who is Chair­man of Vir­gin Galac­tic and an ear­ly backer of Slack, Tes­la and Bit­coin. Flock­’s exist­ing investors Anthemis and Dig Ven­tures also par­tic­i­pat­ed.

With this new fund­ing, Flock plans to rapid­ly grow its high-cal­i­bre, diverse team, hir­ing for more than 60 roles across every func­tion. It has also has plans to expand its motor prod­uct into mul­ti­ple Euro­pean coun­tries and devel­op entire­ly new prod­uct lines.

Ed Leon Klinger, CEO of Flock, said: “Trans­porta­tion is chang­ing faster than ever, but the tra­di­tion­al insur­ance indus­try can’t keep up! The pro­lif­er­a­tion of elec­tric cars, new busi­ness mod­els such as rideshar­ing and the emer­gence of autonomous vehi­cle post huge chal­lenges that tra­di­tion­al insur­ers just aren’t equipped for.

“Mod­ern fleets need an equal­ly mod­ern insur­ance com­pa­ny that moves as fast as they do. Com­mer­cial motor insur­ance is a $160 bil­lion mar­ket, cry­ing out for dis­rup­tion. The oppor­tu­ni­ty ahead of us is enor­mous.

Every­thing we do is led by our mis­sion to make the world a smarter, safer place. We strong believe that the insur­ance com­pa­ny of the future won’t just pay claims; it will active­ly help its cus­tomers avoid them in the first place. That’s the future we’re build­ing at Flock. We’re delight­ed that Social Cap­i­tal has decid­ed to sup­port us, and join us for the ride.”

Flock pro­vides expo­sure-based insur­ance for fleets of com­mer­cial vehi­cles, includ­ing drones, cars, and vans. It wants to help cus­tomers save time, mon­ey and even lives with our prod­ucts.

In 2018, Flock launched the world’s first ‘pay as you fly’ drone insur­ance app, rapid­ly expand­ing to cap­ture more than 35 per cent of the UK com­mer­cial drone mar­ket.

The com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly insures thou­sands of com­mer­cial drone oper­a­tors glob­al­ly, which includes pilots fly­ing for the BBC, Net­flix, and con­duct­ing med­ical deliv­ery flights for the NHS.

And in 2020, it expand­ed into the rapid­ly evolv­ing world of com­mer­cial motor fleets, launch­ing the world’s first real-time insur­ance prod­uct for car rental plat­forms, couri­er com­pa­nies, and cor­po­rate fleets.

In just one year, rev­enues have grown 38x and Flock has wel­comed onboard flag­ship cus­tomers such as Jaguar Land Rover’s, The Out, and Vir­tuo, a lead­ing on-demand car rental app.

Com­ment­ing on the raise, Pal­i­hapi­tiya added: “Flock is bridg­ing the gap between today’s insur­ance indus­try and tomor­row’s trans­porta­tion real­i­ties. Flock has the poten­tial to help unlock and enable a tru­ly autonomous world and even save lives. We’re excit­ed to be part of their jour­ney.”

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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