International legal practice Osborne Clarke has advised Flock, a London-based startup pioneering the use of real-time data in insurance, on its $17M in Series A funding to supercharge its expansion into new geographies and product lines. This funding round marks a major milestone in building a global, fully digital insurance company for connected and autonomous vehicles.
The funding round was led by Social Capital, a leading Californian investment firm run by Chamath Palihapitiya, renowned tech investor, Chairman of Virgin Galactic, and an early backer of Slack, Tesla, and Bitcoin. Flock's existing investors Anthemis and Dig Ventures also participated. This round brings Flock's total funding to $22M.
Flock were advised by Osborne Clarke’s market leading venture capital team, led by Associate Director James Taylor with support from Associate Adam Turner (Corporate), Legal Director Clare Burman and Associate John Roberts (Financial Institutions Group), and Partner Michael Carter and Associate Natalie Paddock (Incentives). The team also previously advised Flock on its £2.25M global seed funding round in 2018.
Flock provides usage-based insurance for fleets of commercial vehicles, including drones, cars, and vans. In contrast to traditional annual policies, which are restrictive and inaccurately priced, Flock provides digital products that are fully flexible (bought and adjusted in minutes) and fairly priced (based on real-time risk). This is made possible by Flock's proprietary risk engine, which ingests huge amounts of real-time data such as vehicle sensor and location data, hyperlocal weather, traffic conditions, and accident data, to accurately quantify risks on a per-second basis.
Alongside an insurance policy, Flock provides its customers with free insights into how they can reduce their risks (for example, by highlighting their most high-risk drivers and routes). When customers improve their safety, Flock rewards them with significantly cheaper prices; some Flock fleet customers are now saving more than 25% on their premiums.
Flock launched the world's first 'pay as you fly' drone insurance app in 2018. Flock grew its drone book to include more than 35% of the UK commercial drone market, currently insuring thousands of commercial drone operators globally, including pilots flying for the BBC, Netflix, and medical delivery flights for the NHS.
In 2020, Flock expanded into the rapidly evolving world of commercial motor fleets, launching the world's first real-time insurance product for car rental platforms, courier companies, and corporate fleets. In its first year, commercial fleet revenues have grown 38x and Flock counts Jaguar Land Rover and Virtuo, Europe's leading on-demand car rental app, among its flagship fleet customers.
Osborne Clarke works with a number of innovative businesses looking to explore and harness value from innovative technology, including Dronetech, Fintech and Insurtech – Flock being a great example of all three being brought together with great success.
Its venture capital team is considered a go-to practice for many fast-growing companies in the tech, media and comms sector. The team combines extensive market knowledge and deep sector expertise to support companies throughout all stages of their development, from start-up to later stage and growth capital funding, strategic M&A and exits.
Its product regulation practice is Legal 500 ranked and helps clients navigate the world of compliance and regulation to launch, monetise and protect their tech products, both digital and physical.
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