The German pension and insurance industry was a laggard in the word of online a few years ago, but in recent times it’s quickly caught up. There’s further evidence of this trend with the news that Xpension (trading as xbAV), an online platform for pensions and life insurance, has raised €25m in its Series C financing round. This will take its total funding to date to more than €50m.
The financing round was led by HPE Growth, a growth capital fund. Existing investors Cinco Capital, led by Lars Hinrichs (founder of XING and chairman of Xpension), and Armada Investment, led by Daniel S. Aegerter (founder of Tradex) also participated.
The new funding will be used to scale up Xpension’s corporate pension and life insurance SaaS platform in Germany; expand the offering into private pensions and life insurance and corporate health insurance; and prepare a rollout into other European countries. The company has also launched a video platform for agents to speak to clients, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To date, Xpension has attracted more than 40 life insurers, 11,000 insurance agents and 3,000 SMEs onto its platform.
Martin Bockelmann, CEO & Founder commented: “After several years of intensive R&D and broad-based user acquisition, this partnership with HPE Growth allows us to unleash the full potential of our platform in Germany and abroad.”
Tim van Delden, Partner at HPE Growth, said: “The move online of the €2.5 trillion global pension and life insurance industry is a huge topic. A SaaS platform like Xpension – which connects life insurers, agents and their corporate and private customers to buy and manage policies – will be a game-changer.”
Speaking to TechCrunch, Hinrichs, the active Chariman and largest private shareholder, said: “We target not just occupational pensions but the entire segment, which is worth 700 billion Euros in premiums a year. German pensions are the leading pensions segment in Europe. And we are taking advantage of the recent changes in pension policy.”
It would appear that Xpension is in a strong position to potentially open up to end-consumers who don’t have pensions at some point, as have similar US platforms, or even to leverage its position to build its own insurance company at some point.