Peter Thiel is backing Berlin 'InsurTech' startup Coya in a $10 million round

PayPal co-founder and Facebook board member Peter Thiel. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

LONDON – Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel has led a $10 million seed funding round into Berlin-based "InsurTech" startup Coya.

Thiel's fund Valar Ventures led the round, which also included funding from e.ventures, and La Famiglia, a European venture capital fund backed by entrepreneurs.

The investment is one of the biggest "seed funding" rounds in Germany. Seed funding is the early stage of investment meant to give entrepreneurs enough cash to build their idea. Coya was only founded last year.

Thiel, who is best known for cofounding PayPal and being an early investor in Facebook, has been an active investor in European fintech, or financial technology, over recent years. The billionaire was an early investor in UK money transfer business TransferWise and UK insurtech startup Brolly, as well as backing German fintech startups N26 and Deposit Solutions.

Dr. Peter Hagen, one of the founders of Coya, said: "Valar’s experience with PayPal, Transferwise, and N26 already set an example for the disruption of outdated business models in financial technology.

"This investment will allow Coya to further extend our team and build up an exceptional product for our customers."

Coya is planning to build a digital insurance provider and has applied to German's financial regulator BaFin for full authorization. It plans to launch to the public in 2018.

James Fitzgerald, a partner at Valar Ventures, said: "Coya is going to implement into every aspect of its customer journey the basic technologies that consumers have come to expect in their digital life – a frictionless, mobile and web first experience, powered by machine learning.

"In short, Coya is going to revolutionize the

via www.businessinsider.fr