With the increasing internet penetration and smartphone usage in the Asia-Pacific region, more and more businesses are going online. This also translates to new challenges — losses due to connectivity outages being a primary issue. In 2018 alone, WiFi connectivity downtime caused losses worth around US$51 million for APAC-based enterprises.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has expedited the transformation of all sectors towards digitalisation, exposing more enterprises to losses due to connectivity outages not only in APAC but around the globe. According to a survey by Open Gear, in which 500 global senior IT decision-makers participated, over 31% stated that outages have cost their business more than $1.2 million while a further 17% said such shutdowns hit revenues by more than $6 million with 83% of the respondents saying that network resilience was their number one concern.
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As such, Switzerland-based insurtech startup Riskwolf is protecting enterprises against losses due to connectivity outages with a mission to make the digital economy more resilient. Founded in November 2019, Riskwolf’s entry to the market comes at a time where digital has become a necessity amidst the ongoing pandemic, subsequent lockdowns and movement restrictions. On one hand, while retailers and businesses are surviving by switching to online channels, on the other, they are concurrently exposed to connectivity outages and the losses that follow.
In an email correspondence, the co-Founder and CTO of Riskwolf René Papesch spoke to e27 about the company’s goals and vision, tech disruptions in the insurance industry and Riskwolf’s future plans.
Providing coverage against growing digital risks
In line with their vision, Riskwolf has built a platform that allows insurance companies to create coverages and help close the protection gap for growing digital risks. Working hand-in-hand with their partners, Riskwolf enables the creation of innovative insurance coverage to automatically compensate business interruption losses due to connectivity issues.
Since their launch, Riskwolf has gained considerable traction, especially between early spring this year and now. “We have built partnerships with local insurers in Vietnam and are close to an agreement with a reinsurer in the Malaysian telco market. Also, we have started to work with a European based carrier,” shared Papesch.
Riskwolf has integrated the premier global data providers and has engaged with online food delivery platforms in ASEAN and India. Riskwolf is also participating in one of Europe’s most prestigious accelerator programs (F10) and the world’s most prominent accelerator program, Plug and Play Tech Center’s program in Singapore.
Papesch has always had a data-driven mindset as well as a keen interest in the application of cutting edge technology to drive digital transformation.
“I was fortunate to have been hired for a multi-year digital transformation project at a leading reinsurer in Switzerland. This turned out to be the perfect place to put my interest in new technology and data to work. It was also on this project that I met my co-Founder, Thomas Krapf,” he shared.
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He believes that incumbent insurers suffer from legacy systems and procedures making it unnecessarily difficult for them to innovate into new markets, risk pools and products at scale and speed. “This is where Riskwolf can step in and help solve this problem by employing real-time data in an innovative technology platform,” he added.
Riskwolf’s alternative data provider uses 3 billion measurements a day to generate a robust statistical regional index of 130 global business centres. Using these measures, they are able to identify when suddenly the Internet goes down in a region. In case of an outage event, policy buyers are automatically reimbursed with a predefined payout.
Emerging tech disruptions and other trends in the insurance industry
The insurance industry has been undergoing massive tech disruptions over the past few years, and this trend has been accelerated amidst the COVID-19 crisis. Distribution processes for simple risks are digitized and Grab-like insurance services are emerging as strong growth drivers in Southeast Asia.
Furthermore, insurance companies are in the process of upgrading and modernizing their core systems to be compliant to new standards such as IFRS 17 (an International Financial Reporting Standard that was issued by the International Accounting Standards Board in May 2017 and has an effective date of 1 January 2023.)
Papesch believes that in addition to the cost-saving and automation aspects that most of the insurtech startups are addressing, a strong differentiator will be the capability to understand and underwrite emerging digital risks, such as internet outages. “Insurance will remain a high-margin business and new risk pools will begin to drive the industry’s top-line growth,” he said.
Another significant shift in the industry as outlined by Papesch is that insurance and reinsurance companies were previously closed systems, however, recently, the industry is moving towards becoming an ecosystem in a collaborative environment to embrace digital transformation in its entirety and future-proof business scalability and growth.
“Riskwolf benefits directly from this trend as we have built a platform to insure the emerging digital risks for the entire industry on a global scale. Our team’s first-hand industry experience and our data-provider partnerships give us the credibility to work with the world’s most sophisticated insurers and reinsurers,” Papesch explained.
Scope, opportunities, and challenges
Papesch explained that last year, in the telecoms space alone, one billion user hours were lost due to connectivity outages. “We are working very closely with a large telco in Southeast Asia to protect their users against connectivity outages,” he added.
Riskwolf is working with a reinsurance company and two leading data providers to build an automated and targeted compensation scheme for telco users. This will be a data-driven product that will provide parametric insurance coverage to telco customers in cases where connectivity outages are caused by weather disruptions, undersea cable cuts or other issues, enabling telcos to compensate their customers faster than ever.
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Currently, Riskwolf’s biggest challenge is the speed, at which their incumbent partners can work with them. Working closely with their incumbent insurance partners, they continue to refine their product proposition funnel and decide which product cases have the best chance for success.
On the distribution side, Riskwolf is continuously approaching large digital distribution platforms and telcos along with leading reinsurance companies that will help them with the B2B sales cycles. In addition, they operate a lean remote-first team that allows them to keep building with efficient use of capital.
Taking Riskwolf to a whole new level: Entering new markets and scaling worldwide
The next big step for Riskwolf is to establish a strong footing in Southeast Asia. In their pursuit of expanding and building a better network here, Riskwolf has signed up for an e27 Pro membership.
“We have used e27 since we decided to enter Southeast Asia. In March, we were excited about the prospect of participating in e27’s virtual investor roadshow. This made us decide to opt-in for e27 Pro,” shared Papesch.
“The virtual roadshow was a great opportunity that helped us connect with investors in Southeast Asia. We liked the focused format with a high investor-to-startup ratio. We were able to introduce Riskwolf to approximately 20 investors in 30-minute video sessions. This will be our baseline for our fundraising efforts,” he added.
Riskwolf is launching a fundraising campaign this month (October 2020) and they plan on leveraging this membership to reach out to the VCs plus provide key stakeholders with regular updates on Riskwolf’s progress.
On the features of e27 Pro that attracted them the most, Papesch said, “For us, it was the ability to reach out to the community and investors in the region, and also the resources that help us shape our brand”.
Riskwolf is focused on getting a pilot product to the market that allows them to raise a seed round by the second quarter of 2021. With their strong growth commitment to creating protection for digital platforms and their users, we believe that this a startup to look out for in the coming years.
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