Gary Lineker joins Zoopla to back home insurance disruptor Neos
Company started by former MoreThan exec receives Series A round funding of £5m.
Neos, the home insurance digital disruptor backed by ZPG that believes it is the “‘future of insurance” has raised a further £5 million in a round of funding lead by insurance giant Aviva but also including TV presenter Gary Lineker (pictured, right).
The company was set up by Matt Poll, a former MoreThan executive with automation expert Krystian Zajac. It offers home owners real-time updates about their property on their smartphone as well as access to a 24-7 emergency assistance team.
“In a fantastic move for Neos that will guarantee our major growth over the next year,” says Matt (pictured, left).
“The new investment will let us not only develop our connected home systems but also grow our underwriting capacity, through an MGA agreement with Munich Re.”
Lineker was also part of an initial round of angel investors in the company in October 2016 and has made several successful previous investments in other insurance-based start-ups.
Strategic investment
In November last year Neos announced that ZPG had made a ‘strategic investment’ in the company, which offers an app-based home insurance service coupled to home monitoring and fire and water leak prevention hardware, including home sensors and HD cameras.
ZPG, which made its investment in Neos as part of a £1 million funding round in four proptech companies, also committed to promote and distribute the Neos service via its Zoopla website.
Neos says this partnership gave it “access to an audience already searching for property online and potentially ready to manage home insurance and protection digitally, too”.
The latest round of funding, which will see Zoopla continue its involvement with Neos, includes several insurance industry big hitters and ‘insuretech’ investors such as EOS Ventures.
