Applying AI to insurance documents, omni:us raises its first Series A funding

Earlier this year omni:us, an AI-driven service which is able to process digital documents (some of which contain handwriting) by classifying them and extracting the valuable data, revealed it was working with over half of the top 10 insurance providers in the German-speaking DACH region.

It’s now closed a Series A round of funding bringing its total funding to date to €19.7M ($22.5 million). Back in early 2017 it announced €4.2M in seed funding, from IBB Berlin, as well as individual investors (including Michael Schmitt, ex-engineering director at Google Switzerland). Then in March this year it announced further funds which brought the total to $6.5 million, secured from individual angels and VC companies, including Anthemis.

This latest investment was led by Berlin-headquartered VC firm Target Global, followed by MMC Ventures and Talis Capital. Existing investors, Unbound and Anthemis, also participated. This will make it a well-capitalized player in the new area of AI-driven insurance platforms.

It’s so far working with several top global insurance companies – such as Allianz, Baloise and AmTrust – as well as insurtech firms – such as Wefox – to boost efficiency and focus on its core competencies.

Sofie Quidenus-Wahlforss, CEO and Founder of omni:us, said: “We know the insurance industry will move from process to data-driven over the coming years. To meet this need, omni:us is the trusted partner, supporting insurance companies along this transformational path. Our deep data based approach enables insurers to better understand their customers and launch new products and services on a more bespoke and individual level. With this round of funding, we will bring our cognitive systems to the next level and expand into the US market later this year.”

Mike Lobanov, General Partner at Target Global, said: “omni:us functionality is tested to provide best-in-class quality in claims digitalization… We believe automated claims handling will become a new standard in the insurance industry that will substantially cut costs and make insurance more affordable to customers.”

Dan Bailey, Investment Manager, MMC Ventures, said: “Insurance carriers are undergoing a once in a generation technology shift, embracing new digital core platforms and adopting best-in-class digitisation and analytics… Sofie and her co-founders have assembled a world-class team, and we’re delighted to be backing them in their vision of bringing AI to the insurance industry.”

Back in 2015 omni:us launched as SearchInk with the aim of combining machine learning with handwriting recognition. The upshot would be the ability to semantically label handwritten documents.