Scouting for Growth
00:22:12 · Richard Gunn
[00:22:12] S1: Yeah. I think you summarized that better than I could, probably. So I think one thing that's kind of fundamental to our platform is we enable our clients to be able to build those integrations themselves if they wish and if they want, and that is critical. Again, like, it goes back to, like, reducing or getting rid of any dependency you might have on on the software provider. Nonetheless, like, we have the luxury of being able to scan across both the broader market, but also our 35 to 40 or so clients and see like which integrations, whether that's with like systems providers, whether that's policy admin systems, data ingestion tools, so on and so forth, or whether that's with like third party data providers and see like which integrations are our clients doing time and time again. And therefore, we should look to kinda, like, proactively help them and accelerate that. So you're right. We have a ecosystem called HxConnect. We have, like, a whole host of integrations there from systems all the way through to data. And then, actually, what's really important is, like, how we then build a relationship and partner with our clients so they know which ones to use. And, like, someone shared me an interesting article. It was related to the impact of AI in enterprise, but it could be the impact of technology and enterprise. And it kind of resolved it to the fact that, like, 10% would be the underlying technology or either kind of LLMs and and for Gen AI. 20% would be the applications that you build on top of it, and, like, 70 would be the change management. That's how, like, it would broadly resolve to the impact that you might have in the enterprise space. And I think that's super powerful. Like, we built a really flexible platform which clients can self serve. That means they can use it brilliantly. They can also use it poorly. Right? And so, like, it's incumbent on us, and this has been a key learning for us over the last, like, six or seven years as a company is actually, like, the onboarding, the customer success teams, the best practices that we share, the user groups, HxLive, they're all really, really important component parts of setting our clients up to succeed. Otherwise, you can kind of...
00:24:01 · Richard Gunn
It'll resolve to another dot net tool, which is gonna be used all across the business, but no one's quite clear, like, you know, the value that it's bringing. And that's, like, incumbent on us actually to, like, work with our clients to kinda help them understand, like, which data they can be bringing in, you know, help them measure and... Like, the value that the data they're bringing in, which is hard, by the way, like, really, really hard. But, like, encourage them to put in framework so that they can, like, continuously evaluate what they do want to be putting in the hands of their actuaries and underwriters and what they don't.
00:24:33 · Sabine VanderLinden, Richard Gunn
[00:24:33] S0: I mean, that... You you have to admit that that's super cool, but also it's critical because, you know, when you look at my team, we test generative AI tools all the time. You know, the one we can test. And one thing which I realise, there's so many tools, you know, when we analysed over 600, 700 companies last year, and now probably the number is doubled. But what is critical is actually when you interact with those companies is, are they going to onboard you? Are they going to show you how to use a capability? Are they going to show you orchestrate as an orchestrator, how they work well with others? And some actually already integrated with others. I think this is because they got to understand really the business problem across specific areas of the business model and the value chain. So you and providing those best practices and enabling your clients always to become the best at what they do by doing this little consulting, what you call consulting, but what you are already doing is onboarding and providing the best practices so that, you know, your goal is to actually enable them to succeed rather than being consultant. Right? I assume. And so therefore, they can actually spread the good word across the enterprise and make sure... Your goal is to make sure that everybody is using it as best as possible to drive those business decision and the value for the business. Yeah. [00:25:49] S1: Absolutely.
00:25:49 · Richard Gunn, Sabine VanderLinden
[00:25:49] S1: Absolutely. [00:25:51] S0: So now you're working, I assume mostly in Europe and United Kingdom. And now Richard, you are in The United States. You are scaling in New York right now, but I assume across The US, working with insurers, I assume, on the East Coast, West Coast. You know, I know quite a few in Texas, as well as on, you know, in Hartford, and I'm sure they would be loving meeting you. But so, what does that mean, Scaling Hx Renew across continent? Will you work with the existing client base? Are you going to, I'm sure, look for new clients? But what scaling means for Hyperexponential?
00:26:33 · Richard Gunn
[00:26:33] S1: Yeah. I will... I'll probably give you a different answer to this in twelve months' time once I've made all the mistakes that we're about to to make. So some... Someone gave me some advice that you will, like, iterate your operating model five times before you get it right in The US, so just be prepared to be wrong at least four times. So take that as a caveat to my answer. One thing that's kind of worth highlighting is, like, there's currently about $45,000,000,000 of GWP that's priced in our platform each year. About 30% of that is already US premiums, and it broadly resolves to about 30% of our clients being US based already. So we're fortunate enough to work with a number of large US insurers. They kind of... When you read the kind of startup kind of, like, guidebooks around expanding either side of the pond, generally, it says, like, the hardest two things are, like, one, getting the culture right, and then two is winning your first customer. So we're kind of fortunate to have a handful of clients already out here who we can, like, build success with and then share that success as a way of building confidence in the market. There's also a lot of kind of... There's lots of similarities between, like, the Lloyd and London market and the E and S space, excess and surplus space in The US. So like our platform is like kind of very well suited to kind of writing US risks as well as it is London risks. So that's kind of like we have that benefit on day one. We're also working with a number of our UK clients who've got strategies to expand into The US, and there's kind of like a natural opportunity for us to partner there. But as you highlight, I'm out here at the moment. I'm building a team. There's four or five of us in in our office in the Rockefellas today, which is exciting, and and we will be growing out a team here. And, like, that's super important. Like, we've been proud from day one that we're by the market for the market. Right? Our founders from the market, like, were technologists by training, and then they spent thirty five years collectively in the insurance industry. And that's been, like, key to our success, really, is that like deep connectivity and understanding of the market's problems.
00:28:32 · Richard Gunn, Sabine VanderLinden
And that's why we're putting an emphasis on hiring experienced US insurance leaders so that they can help form our kind of product strategy as we evolve it to be able to unlock other parts of The US market beyond ENS. Like we're working with some clients in the admitted space now. I mentioned we're moving more towards the SME space as well and just kind of make sure that we are following the cues from the market rather than building what we think the market would like and then hope that they come. [00:28:59] S0: Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm going to use these terms that some people like, some dislike is test and learn, right? You are going to be in the market. You are going to refine your business model. You are going to serve your existing customer, find new ones who actually appreciate good pricing mechanism, and I'm sure there are many in The US market. And so I assume that also means that we will see you at ITC Vegas this year. [00:29:22] S1: You will indeed, with all of our bells and whistles. So we're very excited to go to that. It'll be the first time that we're going to ITC Vegas. And yeah, we'll be there. I think we'll be speaking in a couple of slots and there to meet people and discuss and understand, you know, about what's working for them, what's not working for them and see how we can partner.