Former Ageas chief executive officer Barry Smith also joined the board of Neos as chairman.
Former Ageas chief executive officer Barry Smith has joined the board of Neos, a connected home insurance service, as chairman.
It was announced that Neos had raised over £1m in initial seed funding from Eos Venture Partners including new investors.
The new investors are: Smith, Steve Broughton, former managing director of RSA insurance who joined as a non-exec director and Richard King, the founder of ingenie who is an advisor.
Former England footballer and Match of the Day host, Gary Lineker, is also an investor.
Home insurance
Smith said: “I’m delighted to have invested in and joined the talented and experienced Neos team at this very early stage. This is an exciting time for the home insurance market as we start to see new customer value propositions that embrace connected home technology.”
Neos was co-founded by Matt Poll who is the chief executive office and and Krystian Zajac the chief technology officer in late 2015. Poll was previously a director of More Than, while Zajac is an established entrepreneur in the connected home space.
The insurtech start-up stated that it planned to use the funding for product development. The value of the business now stands at £8.4m.
Connected home
The start-up said it was combining the latest connected home technology, 24/7 monitoring and emergency assistance, alongside comprehensive home insurance from its leading underwriting partner, Hiscox, to create a new approach to insurance.
It said this would enable consumers to actively protect their home and help prevent incidents.
Neos has been in development for the past 12 months and recently started its soft launch, with plans for a full market launch in early 2017.
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