HONG KONG (BLOOMBERG) – OneDegree, a Hong Kong-based insurer of digital property, has been approached by funding banks about going public by means of a blank-cheque firm, its co-founder mentioned.
The agency, one in every of 4 with a so-called digital insurer licence in Hong Kong, expects to hold out a funding spherical in coming months to finance growth, Mr Alvin Kwock mentioned in an interview with out giving specifics.
He mentioned no determination has been made on whether or not to merge with a particular objective acquisition firm, or Spac.
OneDegree raised US$28 million in August final 12 months.
“In the last four years, we have had fund-raising pretty much every year,” Mr Kwock mentioned. “With the type of large market that we are seeing, I do think that there is a lot of interest coming from the investment community.”
The firm, which started promoting safety on digital property final 12 months, on Monday (April 11) introduced a partnership with German reinsurance agency Munich Re to supply protection of cyber-security dangers for buying and selling platforms, custodians, asset managers and know-how suppliers.
It can be working with pilot clients to insure “offline” dangers, protecting bodily merchandise and actual life companies which might be linked to a digital property like non-fungible tokens.
Soaring crypto hacks and thefts means insuring such property is a booming enterprise. The worth of crypto thefts jumped six instances final 12 months to US$3.2 billion (S$4.4 billion) in keeping with blockchain researcher Chainalysis. More than two-thirds of that was looted from decentralised finance platforms, the place counterparties work together immediately through so-called sensible contracts.
OneDegree, based in 2016, mentioned gross sales jumped 30 per cent within the first quarter from the earlier three months, and that its variety of clients has doubled to 200,000 since final summer time.
It is now searching for to compete with conventional insurers in areas together with pets, well being and actual property, Mr Kwock mentioned.
