London, 27th October 2020 – Brothers Bob and Rick Brown ignored warnings from friends and family and first teamed up as Co-Founders on a shared entrepreneurial journey in 1996. With backgrounds in financial services, including insurance, as well as successfully building up moneynet.co.uk, the first personal finance comparison site in the UK, it was no surprise that they moved into the world of insurance tech, founding VIPR in 2009.
VIPR was created after the brothers noticed that insurance industry reports, which contain key policy information, varied hugely in quality. Increasing regulation was forcing greater discipline and scrutiny across the market, and Rick and Bob saw an opportunity. They believed that through standardising and validating the information contained in these reports, they could provide a critical service for their clients, which include insurers, brokers and managing general agents (the local operators who underwrite contracts on insurers’ behalf). VIPR’s products help these industry players to capture cost savings, improve data analysis and, ultimately, increase profitability.
Eleven years on, VIPR has grown from three to over 40 employees, and its market-leading insurance software continues to address ever-growing compliance and regulatory burdens. The business has delivered steady and consistent growth, with revenues growing at over 30% over the last twelve months.
Tenzing is proud to announce its investment in VIPR. At Tenzing, we back high-growth, independent market leaders and high-energy, driven management teams. Bob and Rick have been reducing their time commitment to VIPR in recent years, and we’re excited to back the existing management team, led by CEO, Paul Templar and COO, Stewart Williams. Paul has been with VIPR since the start and took over as CEO in 2019. He has driven the growth and strategy since then.
Paul Templar, CEO of VIPR, commented: “VIPR is already well established as an expert provider of niche insurance software within the London market. We are thrilled that Tenzing has recognised our leading position. Their investment and partnership will assist us in continuing to grow our UK presence and expanding our international footprint.”
Tenzing, along with its Entrepreneurs Panel and Growth Team, will support VIPR to maximise growth potential through investment in sales and marketing, product development and internationalisation.
Christian Hamilton, Founder and Co-Managing Partner of Tenzing, commented: “VIPR has all the characteristics we look for in a business, growing at over 30% over the last year, despite the challenges 2020 has presented. We’re excited to back Paul, Stewart and the wider VIPR team and look forward to helping maximise the company’s potential with the support of our Growth Team.”
This is Tenzing’s ninth investment from Fund I. It follows a busy first half of the year which saw the firm lock in £400m for its second fund within nine weeks.
Notes to editors:
- Tenzing invested in VIPR in October 2020
- Deal value and terms not disclosed
- Tenzing has raised two funds: Fund I (£200m) raised in 2017, and Fund II (£400m) raised earlier this year
- From Fund I, Tenzing has invested in nine businesses to date
- These are: Smoothwall, CTS, CitNOW, Ticketer, EIKON, MPLC, PSSG, activpayroll, VIPR
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