Scouting for Growth Matthew Jones: Some Investors Care About Diversity
In this episode, Sabine VdL is joined by Matthew Jones, Managing Director and venture capital investor in insurance and risk management-related technology for Anthemis in the UK, Europe, and North America.
Through his previous work with Swiss Re, Matthew sponsored Sabine’s first accelerator and was one of her most active mentors, engaged assessor, and investor. They both learned massively during the acceleration programme as to what a sustainable business model meant.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- At the core of our investment thesis are banks, insurance companies, and FinTech companies. But in addition to those kinds of businesses, we’re also actively researching, exploring, and investing in several adjacent industries where we believe that the technology will intersect with financial services in the future, including energy, agriculture, mobility, health, and property tech.
- For me, cultivating change means that we’re prepared to back genuinely different and disruptive ideas that others aren’t. Because our team comes from partly inside and partly outside financial services, we try to blend those two different perspectives into thinking creatively about how we back new companies and under-represented founders.
- Within the context of venturing, there’s a rule of thumb that startups should target a 10x better experience for the user or a 10x better return on investment. That’s a good rule of thumb. And across financial services, there are so many underdeveloped spots where growth ventures can focus on delivering that kind of outcome.
- Entrepreneurs that seek funding should seek smart money. They should ask their investors what they believe in, and how they put it into practice. They should evaluate their investment team and the partners too: Are they a diverse bunch? Do they have values that align with yours and are they putting them into practice? Would you want to affiliate yourself with a firm that doesn’t have the same values as yours?
BEST MOMENTS
‘Without insurance and re-insurance nothing really happens. Insurance is everywhere, which is great for me as someone who’s a little bit obsessive about insurance.’
‘Financial services is the lifeblood of the world’s economies. But we recognise it’s not perfect and there are opportunities for improvement.’
‘There is no part of the insurance value chain that is immune to the effect of technology.’
‘There’s no excuse, and it’s not acceptable, for big venture capital companies to have all male and all white CEO portfolio companies. We are in the 21st Century!’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Matthew is a Managing Director at Anthemis, where he is responsible for sourcing, analyzing, and executing investments as well as providing support for Anthemis’ portfolio companies. He brings in-depth knowledge of the insurance sector and focuses on investments in insurance and risk-related technology.
Matthew’s areas of interest include analytics and data, artificial intelligence and automation, asset management, digital health, mobility, new insurance propositions, and risk management. Prior to joining Anthemis, Matthew was at Swiss Re, with roles across non-life and life insurance and reinsurance in both London and Zurich.
Matthew previously served on the boards of Flock, Hokodo and Stable and is the resident venture investor for Carrier Management’s VC Viewpoint series. He holds a bachelor’s in business administration from the University of Bath and also studied at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.
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