UK rental market insurer Urban Jungle secures seed funding

Insurance startup Urban Jungle, the developer of an insurance proposition for the UK rental market, has raised £2.5 million in seed funding.

The pay-as-you-go insurance policy provider raised £2.5 million from angel investors, including Rob Devey, former chief executive officer of Prudential UK, and Simon Rogerson of Octopus Group.

Offering a pay-as-you-go policy, a commitment to transparent pricing and modern policy terms, Urban Jungle caters for a “growing number of UK renters who have historically been underserved by the industry”.

Since its inception in 2016, the startup has created a suite of products and increased its customer base to more than 15,000.

Urban Jungle currently offers tenants liability, home contents, shared home contents and gadget insurance.

Following the launch of its new contents policy in February, Urban Jungle plans to use the £2.5 million funding to expand its insurance product offering as renters grow older and experience new life-stages.

Jimmy Williams, chief executive officer of Urban Jungle, commented: “I’m immensely proud of what the team has achieved since our last funding round. We’ve ticked off everything we set out to do, and more, as well as bringing in some amazing people to lead us into the next stage. There’s still so much about the insurance industry that we want to fix, and this funding will allow us to accelerate the pace at which we do that.”

Devey, lead investor behind the new funding, said “I’m very pleased to continue supporting Urban Jungle. Greg and Jimmy have done a great job at growing the business by collecting the best talent around them, building some outstanding partnerships and consistently executing on their strategy. It is very exciting to be involved in the next phase of the company’s growth.”

Alongside the funding round, Urban Jungle also made a number of senior hires, including new director of strategy and operations, Helen Hodges, a former director at BBC Studios, and Lauren McAloon as head of marketing, who previously led global customer acquisition at Clearscore.

Mark Dugdale