Albion Ventures invests up to £2 million in Innovation Broking 

Innovation Broking aims to become a significant niche insurance broker

Albion Ventures LLP ('Albion Ventures'), one of the largest independent venture capital investors in the UK, has announced its funds will invest up to £2m in Innovation Broking ("Innovation"), an independent commercial insurance broking business providing corporate insurance broking services to companies and individuals seeking expert advice at board level.

Innovation is led by Paul Dickson (CEO) and Howard Pearson (MD), two highly experienced insurance professionals with strong track records in developing successful businesses.  Paul has over 35 years' broking experience and originally the founder of Dickson Insurance Brokers, which he sold to Giles Insurance in 2008. Subsequently Paul was the Managing Director South Region at Giles Insurance and most recently at Arthur J. Gallagher, where he managed 14 offices and c. £70m gross written premium ("GWP").  Howard is the former Chief Executive of OAMPS UK, the top 50 UK insurance broker, now part of Gallagher's and Managing Director of Miller Insurance (UK) and Giles Insurance Commercial Division, where he served on the board.     

Based in Watford, Innovation will be targeting clients seeking insurance for technology related risk exposures including global property, liability, package, professional indemnity, fleet, directors and officers insurance. With a highly experienced team, Innovation will provide board-level insurance and risk management services on a wide range of new and evolving risks including data breach, cyber risk, technology cover, corporate governance exposures and D&O insurance.

Innovation's growth strategy will be driven by leveraging Management's extensive industry contacts to recruit highly regarded specialist individuals looking to operate in a more entrepreneurial environment.

With brokers distributing around 80% of the commercial insurance market, worth c. £1 billion, there is considerable potential for Innovation to become a significant regional commercial broker and will initially use Paul Dickson's existing business, Dickson Financial Services Limited (DFSL) as an operating company. 

Will Fraser-Allen, Deputy Managing Partner at Albion Ventures said: "We are excited to be investing in Innovation and look forward to working closely with Paul Dickson and Howard Pearson to grow their business over the coming years.  Innovation is extremely well placed to attract leading talent into the business and their expertise in providing board level advice in fast growing areas such as cyber liability has already generated a strong list of clients.

"Innovation provides Albion with exposure to the mainstream financial services sector, an interesting new investment area for us."

Paul Dickson, CEO of Innovation Broking said: "We are very pleased to have attracted this investment from Albion, which will underpin our ambitious growth plans.  Albion's experience in backing high growth businesses will be invaluable as we execute our exciting expansion programme centred round advising businesses in the digital world."

Innovation Broking is a member of key insurance trade bodies in TechAssure and The British Insurance Brokers Association ("BIBA").

Panaseer Raises $2.25 Million Seed Investment 

Fast-growing cyber security software firm attracts new clients in UK and US

Cyber security software company Panaseer has successfully raised $2.25 million through a syndicated seed investment round. The investors include Albion Ventures, Notion Capital, Winton Technology Ventures, C5 Holdings, and Elixirr.

Panaseer was founded in 2014 by Nik Whitfield and a team of cyber security experts from BAE Systems.  It is one of a new wave of UK cyber security start-ups working with commercial enterprises and was selected to accompany Prime Minister David Cameron to Washington DC earlier this year as part of a cyber-security delegation.  Panaseer has since signed its first New York based Financial Services client. 

According to Gartner, corporates spent $71 billion on cybersecurity in 2014 and this sum is expected to increase rapidly. In the UK, 80% of large corporates suffered a cyber breach in 2014, with an average cost of £1m per breach.

A key trend to note is that cybercrime has latterly become highly sophisticated: advanced tools that were previously the domain of national espionage have filtered down to the criminal world, with organised gangs behind highly targeted attacks to steal cash and trade secrets from multi-national enterprises.

Panaseer uses the latest data science techniques to help major corporations answer the question, "How Secure are We?" The company has built a platform which analyses the data provided by all the different cyber security solutions and provides a visual interface to drill down into and understand this information, and so inform board-level decisions on the allocation of security budgets or weaknesses in cybersecurity policies.

As well as growing a New York client base, Panaseer is currently working with several major UK Financial Services customers.

Andy Williams, UK government's Cyber Envoy to the US says: "As one of the new generation of UK cyber start-ups that accompanied the Prime Minister to the US earlier this year, it is great news that Panaseer has now secured its initial US client business and external investment. Panaseer's application of advanced data science techniques to help secure the enterprise is an excellent example of British cyber innovation with global market potential."

Ed Lascelles, Albion Ventures says: "Cyber security is already a huge issue for many firms worldwide and the risks we all face are increasing. We are delighted to be working with Nik and his team at Panaseer, who have a tremendous amount of experience and respect in the industry, as they build on their early success in the emerging Security Intelligence sector."

Stephen Chandler, Notion Capital says: "Data security and system availability are now board level issues for most large corporates, but the threat is now so varied and complex that it requires a fresh approach. Panaseer has the most comprehensive one we have seen, using modern data science techniques and risk-based analysis to prioritise effort and spend across the CIO's full IT estate. They have a smart and capable team, both technically and commercially, so should be able to take market share in this exciting growth area."

Daniel Freeman, C5 Accelerate says: "Cyber security has become a central question for boards and CEOs, and Panaseer is perfectly placed to deliver security insights to key decision makers while ensuring that IT managers optimise security spending around solutions that deliver proven value. C5 is excited to support technology innovators that can leverage cloud computing to drive new advances in cyber security, and we are proud to be backing Nik and the team at Panaseer as they continue to develop their world-class platform."

Stephen Newton, Founder & Managing Partner, Elixirr: "We are delighted to be a part of this seed investment round. We love to invest in game-changing companies and the insight Panaseer can provide to enterprises is unrivalled. We know from our clients that cyber security is a big topic around the boardroom table at the moment and we are looking forward to seeing Panaseer join these conversations."

Commenting, Nik Whitfield, CEO, Panaseer says: "Recent high profile hacks have shot cyber security to the top of company's risk concerns and major enterprises are only too aware of the threats they might face from the various hacking groups who target them. The increased awareness of cyber-attacks presents a new problem for those tasked with protecting their organisations and boards are now regularly asking "How Secure Are We?" New Big Data technologies such as the Panaseer Security Data Lake allow us to analyse this cyber-relevant data to produce previously unobtainable insight.

We are delighted to have successfully completed this round of investment. We look forward to working closely with our partners and making use of their considerable experience."

Burgeoning businesses make inaugural awards shortlist! 

Two groundbreaking Birmingham-based businesses have made the shortlist of an inaugural awards scheme celebrating the best of UK new tech firms.

Online food app innovators Whisk.com and language learning product specialists Flashsticks make up two of the three Midlands finalists in the TechCities Awards.

Both companies have received investment from Midven, one of the UK's leading venture capital specialists, also based in Birmingham.

There are a total of 14 awards up for grabs for regional technology clusters across the UK. They are open to newcomer, innovator, scale-up and tech businesses. The shortlist was made up from more than 200 applications from across the UK.

Flashsticks and Whisk make up two of the awards for the Midlands category, together with Deep-Secure, who provide online security products.

The awards are designed to celebrate the UK's next generation of digital businesses, and winners will be announced at the TechCities Awards ceremony, to be held in London on November 26.

Gio Finocchio, investment manager at Midven, said the recognition was testament to how far both companies had come in such a relatively small space of time.

He said: "Whisk has now rolled out international versions of its app to 11 countries, so they're genuinely making an impact on the world stage, whilst Flashsticks have developed their language learning notes from a simple idea to supplying household names such as Tesco. And both continue to go from strength to strength."

Midven's investment through its Early Advantage fund helped Flashsticks manufacture its full product range and take its idea to market, whilst with Whisk the investment helped fund the development of the technology and its marketing strategy.

Whisk's founder and CEO Nick Holzherr said: "It's a huge honour to be recognised as a leading digital business in the Midlands and the recognition further spurs us to keep innovating. We continue to enhance our platform to empower people to make better decision about food - something that's hugely important for every person for health, financial and ecological reasons."

Flashsticks chief executive Veejay Lingiah said: We now have a team of 12 people based at the Innovation Birmingham campus, and we're currently heavily focused on the new FlashSticks language learning app. It's great that the efforts of the whole team are being recognised via awards such as this."