Insurtech Marshmallow reaches $1.25bn valuation and becomes UK’s second black-founded unicorn
Digital car insurance provider Marshmallow has smashed the $1bn threshold after its latest Series B funding round, making it the second UK unicorn with founders of Black heritage.
Marshmallow’s latest cash injection of $85m values the insurtech at over $1.25bn (£907m), joining the ranks of other recent UK unicorns Starling Bank, Gousto, Zepz and Zego.
The London-based insurtech uses a special algorithm to lower car insurance prices for immigrants, expats and people travelling in the UK.
Oliver and Alexander Kent-Braham – who are identical twins and both under 30 – founded Marshmallow in 2017 and raised $1.2m in a seed round.
They have now become the second Black unicorn founders in the UK, shortly after Zepz’s (formerly WorldRemit) founder Ismail Ahmed became the first last month.
It rapidly follows on from the startup’s last funding round – its Series A, which closed in November last year and raised $30m.
Marshmallow has experienced an impressive take-up in the last year, growing over 100 per cent in the last six months and selling over 100,000 policies.
Funds from the new round, which included investments from Passion Capital, Investec and Scor, will go towards building Marshmallow’s brand amid the UK’s competitive car insurance market, and expanding across Europe.
After increasing their employees by 200 per cent in the last year, Oliver and Alexander will use the fresh funds to hire 400 more people over the next two years.
“We’ve only just scratched the surface of disrupting a market worth $5trn globally, and there’s so much more we’re planning to do in the coming years,” said co-founder and CEO Oliver Kent-Braham.
“We look forward to building more products that help people in their time of need.”
News of the insurtech’s latest bumper funding round comes two months after new data revealed London is home to almost a third of all tech unicorns in Europe, as the capital continues to attract the continent’s top talent.
“Marshmallow is an excellent example of what can be achieved when given the right tools and networks to thrive, but we must continue to level the playing field for excellent Black founders to scale to their fullest potential,” said Gerard Grech CEO of Tech Nation, whose Future Fifty late-stage growth programme Marshmallow recently joined.