French startup Orus has raised an $11.6 million Series A funding round (€11 million). The startup offers insurance products specifically designed for small and medium companies. Interestingly, today’s news comes just a few months after Amsterdam-based insurtech startup Insify completed its Series A funding round with another €10 million.
Orus originally started with an insurance product for restaurant owners. Over the past year, the company added several products and expanded its coverage to more industries.
Right now, the company offers general liability, business owners’ policy, workers’ compensation, health insurance and soon decennial insurance. The common thread is a focus on business insurance, and small companies in particular — think freelancers, retailers, etc.
Notion Capital and VR Ventures/Redstone are leading the new funding round. The company previously raised €4 million ($4.2 million at today’s exchange rate) — some of the investors in the previous round are investing once again, such as Frst, Partech and Portage. Thierry Daucourt from Axa, Grégoire Rastoul from Leocare and Albert Malagarriga Fandos from Elma are also rounding up the round.
A new wave of insurtech startups for the long tail
There are hundreds of thousands of small companies in Europe that have to get some form of insurance before they can start collecting money from their clients. Big companies usually have plenty of options when it comes to insurance products.
But small companies that are just getting started are probably looking for a cheap, off-the-shelf insurance product that they can find on Google when they are incorporating their businesses. That’s why companies like Orus, Insify, Assurup and Olino are all addressing this market.
Orus currently has 5,000 customers. By adding new products, it can act as a one stop shop for all insurance needs. That’s why it makes sense to go wide when it comes to product offering as the company could potentially upsell its current customers so that they only have one insurance company.
Turning Orus into a successful startup is as much a product issue as a distribution issue. There are currently 25 people working for Orus and the startup plans to double its workforce in the next year.