honcho

Idea

Introduction

The insurance market is obsessed with "cheap." We're constantly encouraged to search for the cheapest cover.

But cheap comes with risks.

If you wanted a TV, you could buy one for £20, or for £200. Both will let you watch shows.

However, if you want a remote control and your shows in colour, the £20 TV might miss the spot. The cheapest TV is good in theory, but the chances are it won’t match what you actually want when you think about it.

honcho brings this exact principle to insurance, helping consumers to find the cover that’s right for them. If never being without a car so that you can still pick up the kids is critical to you, we’ll help you find that cover.

But you still want a great deal, so we pit insurers against each other in a real-time bidding war with ever-lowering prices as each competes to offer you the cover you want as cheaply as possible. Think of it like eBay, but backwards.

The outcome? You get the right cover for you, at the best possible price.

Welcome to honcho.

Substantial accomplishments to date

We've been on a fantastic journey since forming, and we're only just getting started.

- Our first major £830k funding round closed in March 2018 with support from crowd investors plus Maven Capital Partners.

- In April 2018 we gained our FCA authorisation and started to build the honcho platform.

- In summer 2019 we closed the first £750k phase of our superseed round with Maven, and we quietly soft-launched our iOS, Android and web apps.

- On August 27th last year we fully launched - a huge moment on our journey! Here's our launch ad:

- In September 2019 we were selected to join the prestigious Tech Nation Fintech Programme and December 2019 saw us launch honcho rewards plus win a Most Innovative B2C Insurance Pricing award.

- We closed the second phase of our superseed funding round in April 2020, raising £1.2m from Maven, existing and new crowd investors and - for the first time - specialist insurtech VC Insurtech Gateway.

- In May we launched our new brand values of Fairness, Innovation and Transparency, being totally clear about who we are, how we're different, and what we stand for.

- We’ve just completed the onboarding of the 16th insurance provider to honcho and our integrations with major software houses CDL, SSP and QTM plus direct integration make honcho available to all insurance providers.

- We’ve also just launched our first partner integrations, bringing honcho to consumers of two major employee benefits platforms plus a major affiliate network.

Monetisation strategy

With over 32m cars & 4m vans on the UK's roads we are initially focussing on the motor insurance market to benefit from its scale.

By attracting consumers into honcho via a mix of direct acquisition (including via social media with the support of Social Chain) plus via partnerships (including two major employee benefits providers and a major affiliate network), we have minimised our acquisition costs whilst maximising our brand exposure and reach.

honcho’s primary revenue stream is our insurer £1 pay-to-bid fee. Contrasting with the hefty commission paid by insurers to PCWs, honcho has no commission. By choosing to bid to try to win a consumer’s business – something our £1 fee provides access to – insurers only chase risks that are right for them, at a potentially lower CPA.

Our secondary revenue stream will be our market data. Our unique platform facilitates market analysis at a granular risk level, something which we plan to monetise from year 2 of active trading.

Use of proceeds

This raise forms the final part of our £2.25m superseed round started in June 2019 with Maven Capital investing £750k, followed by £1.2m of crowd investment this April via Crowdcube with participation from Maven and new VC partner Insurtech Gateway.

We are excited to bring this final part of the raise to Seedrs to further diversify our investor base and bring honcho to a platform with historic support for Insurtech businesses.

Please note that an existing institutional investor holds A ordinary shares, which grants them a 1x non-participating preference on liquidation. Seedrs investors will receive EIS eligible ordinary shares.

Investment received via this round will support several areas of our growth:

1 – Product

We have already grown our technical team and will continue to do so to support the development of our apps and platform allowing us to significantly grow our capabilities, product features and new markets. We plan to launch our van product this summer and are putting in place the foundations for our next growth markets (e.g. home & contents).

2 – Partnerships

We have big plans to grow our partnerships platform across affiliate, affinity and managed service models. This investment significantly enables our platform as a service (PaaS) capability for financial services and other organisations to consume and directly offer honcho within their own platforms.

3 - Marketing

We'll continue to deliver brand marketing to support our B2B acquisition channels, alongside specific B2C campaigns.

Investor Perks

Want to own some cool honcho swag? As a crowd investor in honcho on Seedrs you can do just that and become the proud owner of one of our hoodies and/or tees.

Invest £100 or more and we’ll send you one of our lovely black honcho t-shirts. These aren’t just any old tees, they’re top-quality organic cotton, screen printed with the honcho logo in bold white.

And to our investors of £500 or more we’ll also send one of our brand-new hoodies. We’ve taken our honcho characters and our ‘O’ symbol and combined them into an embroidered design onto a beautiful heavyweight charcoal grey hoodie.

Please note that any discounts, rewards and/or offers listed by a company in its campaign are subject to the terms and conditions applied by that company and listed above. It is the company’s responsibility to honour such discounts, rewards and/or offers and Seedrs does not take any responsibility for them.