Orrick and Kondracki & Celej have advised Poland's Black Pearls VC on the investment of PLN 2.94 million (EUR 700,000) by its Black Pearls VC II Fund into cloud-based Insurtech Insly, part of Insly's seed round that included investments from Concentric Ventures and London Co-Investment Fund and resulted in a total of PLN 9.2 million (EUR 2.2 million).
Solo Practitioner Steven Janes advised Insly on the seed round.
Black Pearls VC is an early stage venture capital firm, focused on supporting entrepreneurs in Poland and the Baltic Sea region who develop deep-tech and enterprise software businesses.
Insly, which was founded in London in 2015, created software supporting insurance agents and brokers in effective management of sales and customer service activities. Insly is already present in many European countries, including Britain, Lithuania, and Latvia, and it has been founded in Estonia. The company will dedicate the funds raised towards developing its platform, scaling its business, and expanding into new markets.
According to a Black Pearls VC press release, "representatives of Insly see a huge development opportunity in the digitization of the insurance sales market in Poland."
Insly CEO Risto Rossar said, “we have proven the value of our product on several markets. It is now a matter of scaling it all up.” He continued: "The Polish insurance market is large, but very fragmented, and the need to implement IT tools is high. Thanks to the investor’s support, we will expand the list of insurance companies offering their products via our platform and we will add a number of functionalities, like intelligent optimization of commission settlements. We hope that Polish insurance agents and brokers will be building their competitiveness with our help and with the support of Black Pearls VC, we will quickly build a strong position on the Polish market."
“The Polish insurance market is ready to become much more digital than it is today, and Insly will certainly play an important part in that journey,” added Black Pearls VC Managing Partner Marcin Kowalik. “It will turn current players more efficient while enabling the new generation of digital agents and brokers to launch their businesses on the Insly platform at modest costs."
The London-based Orrick team was led by Shawn Atkinson and included Managing Associate Dermot O’Riordan and Associates Joanna Oleniuk, Charles Baker, and Charlie Sheldon, Trainee Associate Heidi Wardle.
The Kondracki & Celej team was led by Partner Rafal Celej.
