Wrisk appoints new chief exec amid scaling business

Wrisk has appointed a new chief executive – Nimeshh Patel as it prepares to scale the business.

Patel was previously the insurtech’s chief operating officer since January last year.

It sees former chief executive Niall Barton, who is also chairman of the trade body Insurtech UK, step down.

Barton will assume the role of executive chairman at Wrisk. The group raised over £975,000 through an equity crowdfunding round earlier in June. It raised £1m through its second Seedrs initiative less than a year ago.

Patel took helm last month at the beginning of the month after the firm started to edge closer to the scaling phase. He hopes to expand the business through partnerships and strategic distribution.

The insurtech has more announcements at the end of the year. Currently Wrisk provides contents insurance via an app, and through a long-term relationship with BMW it has expanded into motor, which it hopes to build on over the next 18 months. It will scale in the UK first and use this insight to look into growing globally. 

Scaling up

He told Insurance Times: “We have been in that build phase, we have launched some products, now we are getting towards that scale phase, hence the subtle role change. So, we can get into the next leg of scaling our business, adding more partners etc.

“My past experiences have perhaps led well to operating and taking a company through that scaling phase. Niall is executive chairman, so it means he doesn’t walk away, he will continuously be heavily involved, and we will continue to dovetail each other as we scale the business.”

Patel previously worked at AOL for seven years, and for Venture Capital as a side project as an early stage investor and advisor where he advised and helped a number of of startups in the UK and US. 

He said this experience prepared him for his new role, but also his time at Drawbridge Inc – a US-based people-based identity management company, he called his time there a “seminal experience”. Patel has also held various senior positions throughout his career such as vice president in European finance and strategy at AOL, and vice president of business operations and strategy in Europe for Buzzfeed.

Patel was selected due to his background and experience in early stage investing and scaling businesses.

He continued: “This subtle change [of roles] where I look at the day-to-day operations and try to build that out and so forth allows him [Barton] to focus upstream.”

Patel said of the outgoing chief executive, Barton: ”He has a phenomenal set of relationships with the insurance industry and we want him to continue to explore those avenues. It also allows him to focus on opening up some of the bigger partnerships. He will continue to work with myself as we build out our investment strategy over the next 18 months.”

Partnerships 

“We are exploring a whole host of channels. In order to scale our business effectively we have to explore this B2C2B partnerships – that’s where we are. That’s kind of the strategy over the next 18 months, to get as many partnerships through the window as we possibly can. We are also exploring other verticals, when people buy goods,” he continued.

Wrisk partnered with BMW in September last year – it is the firm’s first large scale partnership. Other partnerships include Moneybox in November last year and most recently in June it teamed up with Allianz to provide a digital customer experience for automotive insurance.

Patel hopes to increase the purchase of insurance through these partnerships at the point of sale, as well as adding more insurance lines in the future.

The insurtech is currently partnered with Allianz Automotive, BMW, Hiscox, Munich Re, Oxford Capital, Qatar Insurance Group and RAC.