NEWS

Mubadala Backs Startup Bucking the Odds

By David G. Barry

Mubadala Investment Company, which invests on behalf of the Government of Abu Dhabi, believes it has an outlier in its portfolio.


At a time when many venture-backed companies are raising new rounds at reduced valuations, wefox, a German insurtech company, has done the opposite in a round led by Mubadala.


The Berlin-based company raised $400 million in debt and equity at a valuation of $4.5 billion. The Series D round comes a year after wefox was valued at $3 billion after completing a $650 million round. Mubadala took part in that round as well as the company’s $235 million Series B round done in 2019.


Joining Mubadala in the new round were  OMERS Ventures – the venture arm of the Canadian pension plan – LGT, EDBI, Horizons Ventures and Target Global.
wefox is a fully licensed digital insurance company that sells insurance through intermediaries and not directly to consumers. It has more than 2 million customers and had revenue of $320 million in 2021. The company said it is on track to have 3 million customers and $600 million by the end of the year. wefox intends to use the funding for product development and to expand across Europe and ultimately Asia and the United States.


In a prepared statement, Ibrahim Ajami, Mubadala’s head of ventures and growth, said that unlike “most direct-to-consumer insurtechs, wefox acts as an ecosystem enabler – empowering the various distribution channels instead of competing with them. This model has allowed wefox to scale quickly and sustainably, providing brokers and customers alike a platform that seamlessly digitizes the insurance market.”


Mubadala has assets of $284 billion and interests across multiple sectors and asset classes. In addition to Abu Dhabi, it has offices in London, Rio de Janeiro, Moscow, New York, San Francisco and Beijing.