Supercede makes $15m capital raise – interview with CEO Jerad Leigh

Reinsurance technology firm Supercede has announced the completion of a ‘Series A’ $15m capital raising exercise.

The round of funding was led by Alven, with contributions from Mundi Ventures, as well as previous Supercede investors Outward, Seedcamp, MMC Ventures, and AFG Partners.

Supercede was one of five insurtechs and alumni of the Lloyd’s Lab incubator to take part in the “Dragon’s Den” session at DWIC 2024.

GR spoke with Supercede’s CEO, Jerad Leigh, about the capital injection as well as the firm’s mission statement, to transform the reinsurance sector through next-generation technology.

He said the capital raise would be spent on “doubling down on the product” to further expand.

“All of that is on people; we’re growing the software team,” said Leigh (pictured).

Revenues have risen “over 500% in the past year”, according to the company.

“There’s a huge amount of momentum and we will continue to lean into improving the product, for new and existing clients, to accelerate growth,” Leigh said.

He suggested some insurtech startups that have courted the reinsurance sector unsuccessfully have taken either an overly commoditised approach, or have not sufficiently understood the industry, or both.

Leigh co-founded the company with Ben Rose as its president; both were formerly reinsurance brokers at Aon, meaning they were used to representing insurance clients in the placement process.

“We’ve lived this problem and seen this pain, when you know the data doesn’t have certainty around accuracy,” he said.

“Part of the reason some technology startups have left the space is that they have not lived this business in the same way. If you’re going to come in and build products that sit between these parties, you have to remove the friction and fundamentally improve the way they do their jobs,” he continued.

“We provide technology and software specifically to help insurance companies curate and prepare information they need to share with reinsurers to help purchase reinsurance,” Leigh added.

At its core, he emphasised, this is a matter of increased confidence in reliable data, structured and presented consistently.

“They need to carefully articulate to reinsurers what’s in the portfolio, including premiums written, any and all claims made, and the development of that information year on year. It’s critical because they’re going to the reinsurance market to buy layers of protection attached at certain levels, all of that is predicated on the underlying information,” said Leigh.

He emphasised that most reinsurance placement is still being done with basic combinations of Excel spreadsheets and policy administration systems, some of which have been in use for decades.

“Errors and miscalculations can happen, without software specifically designed for the task. We provide a structure for the data that hasn’t existed before,” he said.

The reinsurers, receiving many such submissions, are not spared from the errors or inefficiency, he suggested.

“Everyone’s version of the [spreadsheet] presentation looks different, and that variety makes the reinsurance underwriter’s job so much more difficult,” he said.

Improving the placement process for treaty business will change little on the surface, he suggested, but behind the scenes be transformative for cedants, brokers and reinsurers alike.

“The future of reinsurance will look much the same; it will just be much more efficient, so that capital can be deployed more efficiently,” Leigh added.