Best Startup
Heard of trade credit insurance? Not enough companies have or have discounted it because it’s too expensive and administratively burdensome. Basically, it pays out if a customer goes bust owing you money.
Nimbla is on a mission to bring trade credit insurance to any company, offering cover from as little as £5.60.
This means companies can protect themselves from their buyers becoming insolvent by making it flexible and affordable – it can also, in certain cases, help secure invoice funding, which is often a cash flow lifeline for businesses.
Our values are trust, care, and courage – values that our team displays to our customers, to each other, and to our suppliers every day.
What we would really like to do is be known more for risk mitigation – by having the Nimbla insight, you can avoid poor credit decisions rather than having to claim. We like to think of it as a community that shares and benefits from payment data.
Tell us about yourself?
I think they refer to people of my age and tenure as ‘veterans’ as I have been in the insurance world for over 30 years.
I have worked as an underwriter, and broker, worked in re-insurance, and now have transitioned into Insurtech. Lots of people ask me why – particularly coming from the comfort of a larger company to a scale-up.
I strongly believe that any leader in insurance needs to know about this rapidly expanding part of the insurance family, and this is my way of immersing myself in it. It’s exhausting but great fun, and I learn so much every day. It’s not for the faint-hearted, though!
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Buy Bitcoin and Tesla shares. No, seriously, I would say on occasion, we should all slow down to speed up.
What problem does your business solve?
Liquidity would be my first response. But it’s more than that.
We use real-time risk information so funders and companies can get comfort in who they trade with via our risk insights, and our often embedded insurance solutions ensure that bad debt does not sink a company through the domino effect.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Our founder, Flemming Bentsen, had the lightbulb moment to bring this ground-breaking product to market when he was working in the Capital Markets world.
He identified the need and, after researching a solution, found that there simply wasn’t one.
So he set out to right the wrong, and 5 years on here, we are continuing to build on this idea. Data first, digital insurance in the future.
What is your magic sauce?
Any business is about its people, the quality of their work, their dedication to what we are trying to achieve, and their behaviors as a team members.
Without all of those, it does not matter how good your product is. We are data and tech-led with a go-to-market team and customer success department, and within that, we have a fascinating mix of personalities. Many insurers are underwriting and sales.
Technology is not an afterthought. We work cheek by jowl, which means you create great tech which is customer focused and underwritten by really smart data scientists who build and improve the model constantly. Speed, flexibility, and transparency are how we differ.
No one else does what we do as fast as we do it with such great quality of decision-making. We are all very proud of it.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Our vision is to be part of every B2B credit transaction through embedded technology, thus creating the world’s most advanced probability of default algorithm.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Life has a way of springing things on us, but the biggest was Covid-19. As a start-up, not being able to get together as a team was challenging as, undoubtedly, we move faster as a tight-knit pack.
Fundraising in lock-down was more challenging and more lengthy than we would have liked – that said, a lot of companies in our sector didn’t make it, so we won’t complain. We take the win and move on. We are very clear on our direction of travel.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
Put simply, we have a number of APIs we can embed into the company, bank, or funder systems which can give them quick, high-quality, real-time insight into their customers and suppliers and, if required, ensure the credit risk.
Amazon B2B could offer it on any transaction to secure it, and the Facebook marketplace the same. Funders small and large can offer Bad Debt Protection informed by our risk, APIs and then insured via our app. Find out more at www.riskrails.com and www.nimbla.com. Connect with us at [email protected].
We would love to hear from you.
