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Game-changing AI technology for the insurance industry is being rolled out internationally by Cytora after the company secured £4.4 million funding.
Cambridge Innovation Capital invested alongside a cohort of backers including insurance companies QBE and Starr.
Cytora has built a risk engine applying artificial intelligence to identify patterns of good and bad risks over time, allowing commercial insurers to target, select and price risk more accurately.
The technology enables insurers to achieve improved loss ratios and premium growth, whilst delivering fairer prices to customers.
Cytora arose from an idea nurtured by the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School Accelerate Programme and was initially supported by Cambridge Enterprise, the University’s commercialisation arm.
The Cytora team has taken natural language processing techniques and machine learning technology developed at the university and applied them to commercially relevant applications for the insurance industry.
The funding comes as Cytora prepares to deploy its Risk Engine internationally across property and casualty lines with a core group of insurers.
For the past year, Cytora has been working selectively with a consortium of commercial insurers to embed its technology. These insurers, including QBE, Starr and XL Catlin have gained early access to Cytora’s Risk Engine prior to the technology becoming available to the wider market.
The funds will be dedicated to increasing data science and engineering capacity to establish Cytora as the market-leading AI solution for the commercial insurance industry.
Andrew Williamson, investment director at CIC said: “Cytora is an exciting company based on ideas created in Cambridge but with global applications.
It has applied technology developed at the University of Cambridge, has been mentored by the university’s Judge Business School and has been backed by Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s commercialisation arm. We are delighted to support the company as it starts the next stage of its evolution.”
Richard Hartley, CEO of Cytora, added: “Cytora’s technology opens up significant opportunities for the insurance industry.
“We are proud to be supported by pioneering technologists and leading insurers that share our vision for a new standard in risk selection and pricing that is underpinned by objective data and machine intelligence. The calibre of our investors and advisory board is a testament to our team, our technology and the scale of our vision.”
• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Andrew Williamson
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