OTONOMI in the News

Challenge

Data integrity is critically important to Otonomi’s insurance products as they depend on reliable data to determine whether an insurance claim must be filed or a claim paid out.

Solution

Chainlink oracles help ensure that Otonomi’s parametric insurance contracts are executed with reference to highly reliable data that’s accessible on-chain.

Business Outcomes

Otonomi’s parametric insurance solutions reduce contract settlement times, decrease costs, improve risk-weighted performance metrics, and create a more transparent and reliable insurance experience.

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First five weeks of the Lloyd’s Lab — finding our cruise mode.

Hi, it’s Yann CEO and Co-founder of Otonomi, sharing my experience in the Lloyd’s Lab in London.

The first half of the program in numbers:

• In excess of 32 qualified meetings scheduled and performed in-person.
• KPIs increase outperformed by +28% vs remote/zoom.
• 90% increase in new connections within Lloyd’s and London markets.
• 1,190 new leads in our CRM.
• Cargo beta-pilot processed +30% transactions last month.

Our KPIs are looking fantastic!

It’s been an incredible experience to be fully-immersed in the Lloyd’s of London markets, meeting insurance professionals and logistics experts in person, and it’s only the first half!

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First week at the Lloyd’s Lab was a blast — such a unique opportunity for the entire Otonomi team. We are so thrilled to grow our insurance network, accelerate our go-to-market, and learn from Lloyd’s expertise.

I am first to travel to the Uk, but our engineers and sales team will follow suit soon!

Day 1: Getting situated in the Lloyd’s building.

Mon, Apr 25, 2022. The alarm buzzes at 7.15am. Disoriented, I stumble upon my tennis bag and land in the bathroom zombie-like for a revigorating shower. Short stride to Bond St Central Line station followed by a tube-ride to Bank St stop. I circle around “The City” a couple of times to find my way across, manage to get my temporary pass and the building reception, and make it to the Lab at 8.17am. First on the floor, actually, Lloyd’s Lab Director Ed Gaze is already on site, we quickly shake hands, trade a couple of small talks, and I pick a random station on the floor.

After a quick pow-wow with the program team, they send us with Phil our appointed tour guide. With over 40-year vintage at Lloyd’s of London, he’s the perfect guy to share the formal history of the organization but also quirky anecdotes.

The ongoing global supply chain crisis has put meat, cars, washing machines – even Girl Scout Cookies – in a pinch. Last year’s Suez Canal disaster publicized the billions of dollars shipping delays cost businesses each year and how little recourse traditional insurance policies offer.

OTONOMI is a blockchain-enabled platform using Chainlink Data Feeds to deliver parametric on-chain air cargo insurance policies that are independently triggered and executed at a fraction of the time and cost.

This week, the Otonomi team expanded its integration of Chainlink oracles to launch the first-ever smart contracts-powered air freight insurance index. As an official risk contributor to the Nasdaq Global Index Data Services platform, the index is also widely available through Nasdaq’s third-party distribution network.

Team Otonomi, led by CEO Yann Barbarroux, celebrated this milestone in mainstream smart contract adoption in Times Square, where the OTONOMI logo was featured on the Nasdaq MarketSite tower.

A financial index is used as a benchmark to scale the movement and performance of market segments.

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Starting 2022 on a strong note!

Otonomi’s Data & Analytics team is psyched to introduce the first-ever smart-contract-powered air freight insurance index.

The vision behind the index is to provide you with an informative, balanced snapshot of the supply chain sector’s real-time performance.

The sector has been hampered by significant delays and interruptions in the light of the Suez Canal debacle and more recent backlog in the port of LA and Long Beach. We are bringing transparency to an awfully opaque industry.

Blockchain is everywhere in the industry but it’s difficult to find useful information as we are surrounded by crypto memes and altcoins. It’s time for real-life assets blockchain applications!

Our index OTO-USA-1 is bound to unlock unique cargo assets investment potential and create a bridge between insurance capital capacity and crypto capital markets.

It’s time for the whole transportation industry to get a unique insight into cargo delays & interruptions insurance data.

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Otonomi.ai CEO & Head of Analytics Yann Barbarroux joins Jill Malandrino on TradeTalks to discuss how technology can help improve the logistics and cargo sector.

OTONOMI is thrilled to announce our official partnership with Bermuda-based decentralized reinsurer Ensuro, to back our parametric cargo insurance products and develop cutting-edge digital-native policies.

As a tech-MGA platform, OTONOMI addresses a $50 billion market and brings the first-ever parametric air freight disruption coverage to the US market, enabled by Oracle API provider Chainlink. Coupled with Ensuro’s decentralized underwriting, both the logistics and insurance sectors benefit from a pioneering insurance product.

A GROWING PAIN DEMANDS A MAJOR OVERHAUL.

Globalization and international trade define the commerce industry. The Covid 19 pandemic is also redefining the rules of sales with the digitalization of commerce. Transportation and logistics are now hot topics, as businesses and consumer behaviors are changing worldwide.

One of the biggest changes is the explosion of eCommerce. Buying online has been a necessity sometimes during lockdowns and the transportation of goods is more important than ever. The global transportation services market is expected to reach $7. 8 Trillion by 2027. Estimated at US$6. 2 Trillion in the year 2020, the market is projected to reach a revised size of US$7 Trillion.

E-Commerce trends

E-commerce market is supposed to reach almost $5 trillion this year and this number will keep growing over the next few years.

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I am the Managing Partner of Maha Advisors, LLC a New York based digital asset Decentralized Finance (DeFi) hedge fund. I was a Principal of large Asia-dedicated hedge fund, which we founded in the 2000’s. Previously, I worked for Credit Suisse for many years, and was fortunate enough to be based in Asia for four. I am also an advisor to Otonomi.ai, a parametric insurance solution founded by Yann Barbarroux.

*** Fundraising Update*** Team OTONOMI is psyched to announce the first close on its Seed Round! 🚀

🎯 - Amount raised (2021) = $1.04MM.
🏬 - Backed by Institutional Ventures Funds: SoundBoard Venture Fund, Blackhorn Ventures, REFASHIOND Ventures.
⚡️ - Alongside established Angels and Syndicates from: Harvard Business School NY Angels, Digital Assets Funds, KPB-1.
🖥 - Reach out if you'd like to learn more: yann@otonomi.ai.

Thanks to all our investors and partners to make it happen!

This week's Insuretech news with James Benham (@JamesMBenham), and Rob Galbraith (@RobGalb)

Featuring:  
- Interview with Yann Barbarroux from Otonomi
- InsureTech News of the Week

Follow @InsureTechGeek on social media for more updates and to join the conversation! 

This latest Quarterly InsurTech Briefing is announcing that global InsurTechs continue to see a strong trajectory in Q3. This quarter, global InsurTech funding reached an enormous $3.1 billion.

This latest Quarterly InsurTech Briefing is announcing that global InsurTechs continue to see a strong trajectory in Q3. This quarter, global InsurTech funding reached an enormous $3.1 billion. This represents a 23% increase compared with the same period last year and is notably the second-largest funding quarter on record. For the first time in history, we are seeing in excess of $10 billion being invested in a single year into this truly global phenomena. The total number of deals is also now at an all-time high as well, with 421deals completed this year to date.

This Quarterly InsurTech Briefing, the third in the 2021 series, will focus on InsurTechs, InsurTech initiatives and thought leaders focused on the future of risk — arguably the most important topic of the entire series. In this particular briefing, we will be featuring the following InsurTechs:

1. OTONOMI is a blockchain-enabled parametric MGA that transforms cargo insurance policies into fast, cost-effective and transparent digital products.

ITC (short for InsureTech Connect) is the world’s largest gathering of insurance leaders and innovators and takes place in Vegas in the fall every year. After an off-year last year during the pandemic, when all events got moved to virtual (including ITC), people recently got pumped about getting back to meeting in person. And boy they did!

A few data points to give you a sense of the magnitude of the conference:

30,000+ have attended from major brands to the newest entrants.
75,000+ meetings facilitated industry-changing conversations.
100+ countries the most global gathering of insurance leaders.
70%+ VP and higher decision-makers from across the insurance and insurtech ecosystem.

I have attended the 3 day-long conference and had a blast! I reckoned I’d share some of my experience there.

Day 1: Ready. Set. Go!

I am Brandon Fried, Executive Director of the Airforwarders Association based in Washington, DC.

I am an award-winning, seasoned air cargo industry professional with extensive public relations, media, regulatory and legislative experience currently serving as Executive Director of the preeminent airfreight forwarder trade association in Washington, D.C. I oversee substantial new international member acquisition, revenue management, and implementation of the association’s strategic plan. I am regarded for strong leadership skills, consensus building, motivating, supporting, and driving significant organizational and developmental success.

My name is Cecilia Rogers, I’m a Growth Marketing Strategist for OTONOMI. I was born and raised in Minneapolis, MN, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a BBA in Computer Information Systems & Finance. During undergrad, I studied abroad in Hong Kong where I picked up an obsession to learn about diverse perspectives across the eastern hemisphere. After college, I moved to NYC to pursue a career in capital markets innovation, working to digitize incumbent financial systems at JP Morgan and Citigroup. I am now working with OTONOMI and Alumni Ventures in order to pursue my newfound passion for helping startups scale.

During this SmartCon panel discussion, thought leaders and founders of decentralized insurance companies explain how they build critical tools for traditional financial institutions to enter the DeFi space, enabling enterprises to accurately assess risk and opportunities.

Chainlink is the industry standard oracle network for powering hybrid smart contracts. Chainlink Decentralized Oracle Networks provide developers with the largest collection of high-quality data sources and secure off-chain computations to expand the capabilities of smart contracts on any blockchain.

Plug and Play has chosen 153 startups to join their Winter 2021 Batches. These companies will participate in one of the following programs that will run through November: Energy, Enterprise Tech, Fintech, Health, Insurtech, Internet of Things, Mobility, Real Estate & Construction, and Travel & Hospitality.

The participating startups will be fully immersed in Plug and Play's global network of over 30,000 startups, 500 industry-leading corporate partners and hundreds of venture capital firms and investors. Out of the 153 startups, a majority of the startups are based outside the U.S., representing a variety of countries including Austria, Canada, France, Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore and more.

"Over the years, we have seen the best, most innovative startups join our unique ecosystem," said Saeed Amidi, Founder and CEO of Plug and Play. "I am excited to welcome 153 startups into our Winter 2021 Programs to close off the end of the year. Throughout the next three months, these startups will gain tremendous access to our partners. I know, without a doubt we will see some of the greatest innovations during these unprecedented times."

Insurance is known as a slow-moving industry. Recently this traditional industry has become a very attractive sector for VCs and startups.

The global Insurtech market size is projected to grow by more than 34% per year until 2027. The strong innovation in the insurance industry has brought an abundance of capital to the sector.

Major factors driving the growth of Insurtech are:

● The growing demand for insurance service digitization. Insurtech aids in the simplification of the insurance purchasing and claims processes.

● Insurtech helps create new avenues that large insurance companies have less incentive to achieve, such as offering ultra-customized policies. These solutions use new streams of information from internet-enabled devices to price premiums.

● By lowering acquisition costs typically by providing customers with a digital interface and using a direct model Insurtech is much more cost-effective than the traditional model.

● Improved efficiency compared to the existing insurance model.

A handful of startups are moving rather rapidly from launch to exit to answer the growing demand, and investors are responding to the demands. In 2020, U.S. investors put a record $4.9 billion into insurance-related deals, per Crunchbase data.

Fintech is the word used to name the integration of technology into offerings by financial services companies. 2021 is a great year for the fintech startups fundraising. As investments in Fintechs are breaking records, the insurance sector is soaring.

InsurTech has become a powerful force of change in the insurance industry, and the world’s interest for startups in this industry is growing. A few examples: Online insurance provider Next Insurance Inc. raised $250 million, cyber-focused Coalition Inc. raised $175 million, and Berlin-based digital insurance company Wefox raised $650 million.

Let’s see some numbers!

My name is Jeremy Sutton, I’m CTO and co-founder of OTONOMI.

A brief history: I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, though I spent years of my childhood overseas in both Taiwan and England. I think those years abroad, implanted in diverse cultures, instilled in me different and contrasting perspectives.

After graduating with a BS in Computer Engineering from Pitt, I moved to Boston to grow my software career in one of the biggest tech hubs in the country. It’s there, after 10 years learning all I could at the big tech companies IBM and LogMeIn, that I embarked on the startup journey that is culminating in OTONOMI.

Awesome conversation with Insurance Nerds' Tony Cañas, CPCU, MBA, AU, ARM, ARe, AIC, AIS featuring OTONOMI in podcast episode #239.

Tony chats with Yann Barbarroux, the CEO of Otonomi. They helps drive efficiencies in insurance operations.

Yann Barbarroux: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannbarba...

‍Otonomi: https://otonomi.ai

‍Audio only version of this episode: https://www.buzzsprout.com/87086

Overview

The Innovation Challenge is a contest designed to draw out ground-breaking ideas from entrepreneurs, students, and experienced professionals with intent to enable forward momentum beyond the end of the contest. InsurTech Hartford ran its first event Innovation Challenge in 2020. The event received 100 submissions across 3 categories from 10 countries.

This year's innovation challenge will build off the success of the prior year. We will follow the same 8-week process to gather submissions and review with a panel of insurance professionals to down-select finalists. Finalists in each award category will pitch to a panel of judges, and the judges will select a winner. Finalists will present to a global audience at an Awards event in June where the winner will be announced.

The pandemic effect: demand for e-commerce has dramatically increased and global trade has gained strong footholds, propelled pent-up revenue for the air freight market, now poised to take off to new highs in the future.

Air freight delivery is the industry of transfer and shipment of goods via an air carrier (charter or commercial). Such shipments travel out of commercial and passenger aviation gateways. Air cargo is a very interesting option for coordinating time sensitive shipments to almost anywhere in the world. A small or midsize company is now allowed to participate in international trade in a very effective manner thanks to air cargo. Shipping by air also offers the advantage of a high level of security as airport controls over cargo are very seriously managed.

Air Cargo is rising. The industry of freight shipping is a conjunction of other forms of shipping, like marine, rail and ground, air freight has been growing exponentially as an industry in the last 40 years. Air freight is now regarded as an efficient means to ship nationally and internationally and since the Suez Canal crisis, the activity is booming.

OTONOMI is pleased to announce that we have integrated market-leading decentralized oracle solution Chainlink to bring real-world data to our B2B SaaS parametric insurance solution. OTONOMI will use Chainlink’s ability to aggregate data from premium data providers and deliver it to our platform in a highly available and tamper-proof manner to automate insurance claims processes. The result of the integration will be a reduction in contract settlement times, decreases in operating costs, and the creation of a more transparent and reliable insurance experience for all.

Hey there, I am Yann Barbarroux. CEO and co-founder of OTONOMI, an insurtech focused on transforming the transportation and cargo insurance industry.

I was born and raised in Marseille (France), went to grad school (graduated from a MS in Computer Engineer) in Paris, found my first job in Wall Street back in 2003, and never left NY :)

I am based in Greenpoint, one of the most vibrant areas in Brooklyn, and summer is looking shiny and fun from my vantage point!

2. Describe yourself with 4 words?

Curious. Creative. Sarcastic. Gritty.

The Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, an incubator based in New York, is introducing 12 new companies at its 20th demo day tomorrow.

ERA has thus far had more than 226 companies go through the program that have raised more than $1 billion in capital and collectively share a market cap over $5 billion.

So without any further ado, here are the 12 companies launching out of ERA tomorrow.

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a bit of data stored on a distributed ledger, called a blockchain, that certifies the authenticity of a digital asset. An NFTs can be used to represent items such as photos, videos, audio, and different types of digital files. The big difference with other blockchain-based assets such as Bitcoin, Ether, and other stablecoins is that they are all unique and non-interchangeable.

One of the pioneers of the NFT world in Europe is Frederic Montagnon, Executive Chairman at Arianee, the digital platform using NFTs for all valuables.

“What’s happened over the past 25 years is that we went from no screen to probably 85% to 90% of our time spent on a screen or with a screen in your hands,” Montagnon said. “We are living connected all the time now. And the existence of real assets, when you spend most of your time in a digital environment, has no sense anymore. What we are trying to do is to bring all these real assets into your digital life.”

So NFTs are the future? Well, the interest is rapidly growing!

Business interruption insurance is a coverage that replaces business income lost in a disaster. The event could be, for example, a fire or a natural disaster. Business interruption insurance is not sold as a separate policy but is either added to a property/casualty policy or included in a comprehensive package policy as an add-on or rider.

For example, if a tree falls on your building or your office and you cannot work as you need to shut down the location for repairs, this policy can help cover the costs of your lost income. If you own a store, and a government-mandated road closure temporarily shuts down your company, your business income insurance may also cover the lost income provoked by this closure and the difficulty for the clients to come to your store.

Most of the insurance companies are offering travel insurance now. But many clients have issues with their payment when their flight is delayed or cancelled. According to some experts, Airlines might soon reinstate change fees on their lowest fares. This cost will probably push customers to buy more travel insurance to cover any potential delays and get a refund. With more customers flying as COVID is slowly being controlled, the number of travelers might create more delays. How can you get refunded faster?

We know that operating a flight is a challenge mostly because of the different people involved. Airlines can control certain factors like aircraft turnarounds between flights, passenger punctuality, technical and crew performance, etc.

But a number of other factors are outside of the airline’s control, such as weather, air traffic control, security, airport conditions, etc.

According to the latest report of CB Insight on Travel tech funding, the startups disrupting the sector are still attracting VC. “The Covid-19 outbreak cost the international tourism industry $320B in lost revenue between January and May 2020, according to the World Tourism Organization. Despite growing economic uncertainty, the global travel tech startup space has raised $2.4B in equity funding since the beginning of 2020.”

According to the passenger throughput released by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA), more than 9.2 million passengers traveled by air during the 10-day holiday stretch in 2020. It was the first time since the pandemic began that more than 1 million passengers traveled each day. And the number of travelers is growing with the number of vaccines being administered.

With customers ready to travel again and VC interested in the Travel Tech sector, the next couple of years promises to be extremely exciting in the space.

Speaker: Yann Barbarroux | DeFi, Blockchain and the future of decentralized InsurTech

Born as a solution for property catastrophe reinsurance, the application areas of parametric insurance have rapidly expanded into different lines of business such as agriculture, weather-related risks and travel.

Parametric insurance is today widely considered one of the main trends that will define insurance in the next years, and today many insurers, reinsurers and insurtech start-ups have kicked-off or are going to kick-off projects in the parametric insurance area.

In this episode, Stacy sits down with Yann Barbarroux, who is the CEO as well as Co-Founder & Head of Analytics of Flyion, a service designed to help travelers get compensated in case of flight delays and cancellations. The two discuss how to market a new travel business, and they dive into the details about bitcoin.

New York—January 11, 2021—Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) today announced that it has selected its Winter 2021 class, which begins today. The companies selected to participate in the four-month program are innovating in a variety of significant industries, all with businesses ready to take advantage of ERA’s platform and the broader New York City opportunity.

This is the Accelerator’s 20th program. ERA’s initial investment in participant companies is $100,000.

Since its launch in 2009, Bitcoin has attracted flurry of opinions from complete misunderstanding to awe, while being called all sorts of birdnames.
In reality, beyond the technical considerations of decentralized digital ledger transactions, cryptocurrencies are in fact currencies.
While not a majority of the use cases concentrates on disrupting payments in Emerging Nations, intrinsically, cryptocoins do depict fundamental similarities with Emerging Markets Foreign eXChange (EMFX) currencies.
This article is an attempt to focus first on laying out few examples of why and how current EM Currencies have been experiencing massive challenges in maintaining stability, second present few facts and mechanism about cryptocurrencies payments and finally how we believe cryptos and digital payments could dramatically help the Emerging World resolve issues on cross-border payments, currencies reserves and reduce volatility.

With the development of the vaccine around the world, travel could once again be possible, even this year! A new report from Airbnb is showing some meaningful changes in the travel industry for 2021 in the US. Here are some trends AirBnB is expecting this year.

According to AirBnB, “Travel will be viewed as an antidote to isolation and disconnection”. The report is based on a year of data spanning mid-2019 to late 2020 as well as a public poll conducted in December 2020. Travel is one of the activities Americans have missed the most, with 54% planning to travel in 2021.

Let’s see how their trips will look in the near future:

Buy now, pay later or BNPL is a kind of credit payment that allows customers to purchase goods and pay for them either later or by installments. Interesting facts about BNPL: they are not regulated like credit instruments hence their popularity in usage and distribution.

Providers such as Klarna, Affirm, Afterpay, Quadpay and PayPal enable customers to shop online or in-store without having to pay straight away. And it’s working, as the average order value is typically higher, and checkout conversions surge 30 percent for retailers using BNPL.

According to Kaleido Intelligence, a fintech consulting firm, by 2025, $680 billion will be spent using ePOS finance/Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL).