Breez, the UK-based smartwatch-centric car insurer and technology provider has raised £200,000 in a friends and family funding round. The investment enables the business to build core functionality of their telematics platform before their public launch later this year.

Successful fundraise

Breez’s approach to fundraising has been unique, having avoided the typical route of venture capital or angel investors. Using a 20-minute YouTube pitch video sent over Whatsapp, Breez has attracted over 50 investors, all of whom have direct relationships with the founding team.  

When asked about his choice to approach family and friends, Breez founder and CEO Dino Bertolis noted: “We wanted to create a community around Breez where those close to the business can support it from the outset and share in its success. Our funding round raised money quickly and we incurred minimal associated costs, which meant that we could focus our time, effort and resources on building a brilliant business.”

Disrupting telematics car insurance

Breez is capitalising on the popularity and growth of connected devices and wearables by building the world’s first smartwatch telematics platform. It uses a combination of data from mobile phones and smartwatches to quantify auto-insurance risk.

The Breez telematics platform allows for auto insurers to use smartwatches as a way to acquire customers, measure risk, influence risk, and provides additional services such as crash detection and predictive analytics.

Bertolis adds: “Telematics has failed to deliver the promised innovation in the auto insurance market. The products offer poor value to customers and the technology used is expensive, undesirable and/or suffers from shortfalls in data quality. Using a smartwatch as a telematics device is transformative for the industry.”

Leveraging off its smartwatch telematics technology, Breez plans on launching a direct-to-consumer car insurance product in the UK later this year.

Bertolis adds that “Car insurers globally have to realise that telematics is a capability. It’s about getting the technology and product right. Many insurers fail on one or both of those aspects. We want to lead the way by providing unrivalled value for UK car owners through our smartwatch telematics product and technology.”

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