By Miles, the pay-by-mile car insurance provider raises £5m

by Startacus Admin

Insurtech startup By Miles, the UK’s first real-time pay-per-mile car insurance provider, has successfully raised £5m in a Series A funding round led by Octopus Ventures.

By Miles is a UK startup that provides pay-as-you-drive car insurance to those who drive fewer than 7,000 miles a year. Drivers pay a small upfront sum for an annual policy and are then billed at the end of each month for the miles they drive. This offers many drivers the opportunity to cut their bills if they mostly use their cars for regular short trips or at weekends.

The insurtech startup is on mission to make car insurance better for the UK’s 19 million low mileage drivers - those who drive less than 7,000 miles a year - by offering a fairer and more flexible way to pay for car insurance cover. We first featured By Miles on Startacus back in July 2017, so we are delighted to continue to follow their journey.

The insurance industry is prime for disruption. Think, our recent articles on DeadHappy, the digital pay-as-you-go life insurance to consumers and Photocert, the InsurTech / SaaS startup that's using tech to digitally transform the insurance claims industry, as two good recent examples. So it is no surprise to see the disruptive By Miles successfully raise £5m.

The Series-A funding, leady by leading European venture capital firm Octopus Ventures, will be used to build on this award-winning approach by further investing in its market-leading customer service team and in-app claims handling so if the worst does happen, claims can be resolved quickly and smoothly. By Miles will also be continuing the roll-out of more innovative new car insurance products, enabling them to bring smarter and fairer pricing to even more drivers. 

The miles you drive are measured using a Miles Tracker which drivers can plug into their car in moments. Customers can use the By Miles app to automatically see the cost of their journeys and access handy driving tools and reminders.

This switch to pay-as-you-go, rather than pay-how-you-drive (speed, braking etc.), sets By Miles apart from existing black box and telematics policies, as they don’t use driver scoring or curfews to change the cost of a driver’s insurance - just the distance they drive.

In addition to the lead investor, Octopus Ventures, By Miles has successfully further funding commitments from its original investors including Insurtech Gateway, the insurance-focussed incubator set up by investor Hambro Perks and Lumleys, InMotion Ventures, Jaguar Land Rover’s venture capital fund and JamJar Investments, the venture capital fund of the innocent drinks founders.

By Miles' customer-centric approach has already attracted thousands of users: collectively they’ve driven over a million miles since its July 2018 launch. The company has a 9.7/10 rating on Trustpilot and is the first insurance provider in 30 years to be awarded a Plain English award, an award it won for its jargon-free policy handbook.

We look forward to seeing how they further drive the business forward with this series A funding. Congrats team!

 

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• #series a
• #funding
• #insurtech
• #by miles
• #car insurance
• #octopus ventures
• #insurance

Published on: 25th February 2019