This is not a fundraiser like the others. The online broker dedicated to small professionals +Easy just completed an operation financing of 90 million euros with a majority of debt (the proportion is not specified). The private equity giant KKR, via its growth fund, enters the capital. It is the fifth French start-up, after the online driving school Ornikar, the neobank for SMEs Qonto, Fotolia and Ivalua (fintech) which has won over the American investment company.
“We see a lot of potential in Europe and France in insurtech and +Simple to everything to become a European leader,” said Lauriane Requena, investor at KKR. The existing shareholders, Speedinvest and Eurazeo, are back in the pot while OneRagtime exits capital during this round. Tikehau Capital is also participating in the operation.
The luxury of debt
The use of debt, which does not involve a dilution of capital, makes sense since +Simple is profitable since the end of 2021. “We’ve never needed to spend a lot of money on marketing and acquisition as we deal with local brokers and big insurers. It’s a healthy model that gives us the luxury of raising debt,” says Eric Mignot, co-founder of +Simple. Since its creation in 2015, insurtech has raised “only” 27 million euros, including 20 million in 2020.
On the occasion of this operation, the Marseille start-up announces the acquisition of three companies: Aliensa French broker dedicated to non-conventional medicine practitioners; Carl Rieck Assessora subscription agency aimed at the self-employed and very small businesses, and marinetec, an Italian broker that covers medical risks. The amounts of these three operations are not disclosed, but Eric Mignot indicates that they correspond to the market standard, namely twice the turnover, between 3 and 12 million euros per company.
These three players are very little known because they are both specialized and small in size. They are mostly little digitized and not always profitable. “+Simple will be the pipe that will allow them to make their portfolios profitable because they generally process their files by hand”, says Florian Graillot, partner at Astorya, a venture capital fund specializing in insurtech.
Cascading takeovers
For the start-up, these takeovers make it possible togrow your client portfolio more quickly. In two years, it has made seven acquisitions and does not intend to stop there. “We are destined to integrate between three and five companies per year “says Eric Mignot. A bulimia still rare in the world of French insurtech.
But other start-ups are beginning to develop their external growth to accelerate their customer acquisition. This is the case in home insurance with Luko, which recently got its hands on its German counterpart Coya, or the neo-insurance Lovys, which swallowed up Otherwise, a broker specializing in dog-cat insurance. In general, it is rather the insurers who buy out start-ups, as the Prévoir group did at the start of the year by taking control of Easyblue, which specializes in the insurance of the self-employed and managers of VSEs.
In parallel with the acquisitions, +Simple will also continue to serve large traditional players, including its current customers such as Harmonie Mutuelle and Maif. In total, +Simple works with 4,500 brokers in France, 2,200 in Germany and 300 in Italy. Its turnover reached 21 million euros in 2021, compared to 10.5 million in 2020. small professionals in Europe,” says the leader. And that, without becoming an insurance company.
