- The AXA Group launched AXA Strategic Ventures, a €200 million venture capital fund.
- The fund will invest in strategic opportunities that contribute to improving customer experience.
AXA today announced the launch of AXA Strategic Ventures (AXA SV), a €200M venture capital fund dedicated to investing AXA Group money in budding strategic innovations in the insurance, asset management, financial technology and healthcare service industries. Led by François Robinet, with a presence in San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, Zurich and Berlin, and plans to launch a presence in Asia in the near future, AXA SV will have on-the-ground coverage of investment opportunities across the globe on behalf of AXA Group companies.
AXA is launching AXA SV in order to harness technological disruption for the benefit of AXA Group companies. The quality of interactions with customers is a priority for the Group. Complementing internal efforts to improve customer experience by bringing in new approaches, technologies and business models being developed by young innovative companies can only lead to stronger results. The Group will aim to provide these start-up companies with funding expertise and market access, bringing together their entrepreneurial agility and the experience of a global leader in financial services.
“Through AXA Strategic Ventures, we will leverage our global reach, capital and scale to serve as an accelerating force for start-up companies which have the potential to bring new approaches to the insurance model. We are aiming through this investment to better serve our customers and improve our daily interactions with them”, said Henri de Castries, Chairman and CEO of AXA.
AXA has already successfully seeded start-ups in Europe, with investments in five companies through the “AXA Seed Factory” - a seed fund launched in France in June 2013 and that will now be part of AXA SV: Particeep, Widmee, Flyr International, Fundshop and ClimateSecure. These firms bring the latest technology to the areas of, respectively, investing, customer acquisition, travel insurance, portfolio management and climate change consulting. AXA SV will invest AXA Group money in various fields such as healthcare, peer-to-peer insurance, micro-insurance, data analytics, etc; thereby not only contributing to a stronger customer experience, but also anticipating their needs.
Find more information on AXA Strategic Ventures: www.axa.com, www.axastrategicventures.com
AXA Strategic Ventures’ portfolio companies to date:
- Particeep: https://www.particeep.com/accueil
- Widmee: http://www.widmee.com/
- FlyR International: http://flyrlabs.com/
- Fundshop: https://www.fundshop.fr/fr/
- ClimateSecure: http://www.climatesecure.eu/