Italy’s largest insurer, Assicurazioni Generali, has made its first move into tech investing with the launch of a new venture arm — Generali Ventures.
The insurance group will begin investing in tech indirectly; its first fund, an insurtech and fintech-focused fund of funds, has committed to investing €250m in global VC firms by the end of 2024 — and has already begun deploying capital.
Generali has invested in three funds from Europe’s top fintech and insurtech VCs since January last year — Speedinvest, Dawn Capital and Mundi Ventures. It has six more VC funds in due diligence, Generali’s group head of innovation Danilo Raponi tells Sifted in an interview, and expects to close its next investment in the first quarter of next year. The fund of funds is expecting to make around six investments in total by the end of 2024.
“We want to be opportunistic, so we may invest a larger amount in fewer funds if they’re really good,” Raponi says.
“But with the amount of accumulated deal flows and startup interaction we’re already getting from the investments we’ve made so far, we think that’s more than enough for the time being.”
Access to dealflow
It’s this access to dealmakers’ networks and tech know-how that’s behind Generali’s new venture strategy. Sifted understands it’s taken a seat on the advisory board of Mundi, and Raponi says it plans to meet with the firms it invests in at least quarterly for “best practice sharing”, including updates on their investment theses and the latest tech trends.
It’s also hoping to gain exposure to the fintech and insurtech sectors at a range of stages and in a range of geographies via its investments, and potentially partner with portfolio companies in the future.
The wider Generali group will also be looking at startup acquisitions, Sifted understands. It currently has €500m left of the €3bn it earmarked for M&A in its wider strategic plan almost two years ago.
Easing into risk
Despite accounting for around 9% of Italy’s GDP, almost all other Italian insurance companies have so far steered clear of tech investing.
Local investors and founders tell Sifted that the industry is sitting on one of the biggest untapped pools of capital that could potentially back local tech. They look next door to France, where in 2019 Macron drummed up €5bn for investing into French startups from its biggest insurers — including Allianz, Axa and Aviva — with envy.
But Generali Ventures has no plans to focus its investments on homegrown tech. Why? It may sound cliché for an insurance company, but it all boils down to risk.
“We’ve spread our asset allocation evenly for a reason,” Stefano Bison, group head of business development & partnerships says.
Sifted understands that Generali Ventures is considering direct tech investments in future, and is also planning on co-investing with the funds it backs. But for now, it is staying prudent.
“Right now, you have very good market opportunities and the logic behind investing in some deals is very interesting,” Bison says.
“But it’s all very risky. A good insurance company is all about good risk management, so the top priority for us has to be good financial remuneration because of the risk we’re taking.”
