French start-up Shift Technology becomes a unicorn after raising funds from Advent International

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French start-up Shift Technology becomes a unicorn after raising funds from Advent International

Shift Technology, a French company that specializes in developing AI-based data automation and optimization solutions for the insurance industry, has reached a new milestone. It has just raised nearly $220 million from the investment fund Advent International. With this round of financing, the start-up company becomes the thirteenth French unicorn.

320 million dollars of investment in Shift Technology

Following a Series D funding round, French start-up Shift Technology announced that it has raised $220 million from Advent International via Advent Tech. Bpifrance represented by its Large Venture fund, Avenir Growth and well-known Shift investors such as Accel, Bessemer Venture Partners, General Catalyst and Iris Capital contributed to the round.

Cédric O, Secretary of State for Digital Transition and Electronic Communications, commented on the milestone that Shift Technology has just achieved:

“I would like to congratulate the Shift teams, whose success today is proof that France can give birth and grow nuggets with an international future. Since 2017, the Government has been actively supporting its start-ups, because we know, along with Bruno Le Maire, that they are an essential pillar of French economic vitality and European technological sovereignty. Shift has been able, for example, to take advantage of the French Tech Visa on several occasions, which has enabled it to bring many international talents to France. Thanks to this very good fundraising achieved despite the crisis, Shift becomes the 13th French Tech unicorn!”

This is the sixth time this year that Advent has participated in the capital of growth companies this year. Thomas Weisman, Director of Advent said he was “delighted to be able to support Shift in its new promising growth phase”. With this additional investment, the French company has raised a total of €320 million.

An investment to pursue Shift Technology’s development strategy

The French start-up has developed several solutions:

  • Software as a Service (SaaS) enabling fraud detection and claims management automation.
  • Shift Insurance Suite, launching in January 2021, which applies the brand’s AI-based decision optimization technology to several critical processes such as insurance policy underwriting to claims.

Thomas Weisman, director within Advent referred in his remarks, to the tools offered by Shift:

“The Shift suite of products in SaaS mode allows insurers to rethink the previously manual and often time-consuming processes that mark out the various stages of the life cycle of an insurance policy. It also brings greater security and automation to these processes. We are delighted to be able to support Shift in its promising new growth phase.”

With this new round of funding, the company wants to confirm its place as a leading provider of vertical SaaS solutions as Jeremy Jawish, CEO and co-founder of Shift, says:

“We want to make Shift a French champion and an international leader that will be able to provide insurers with the technological solutions they need to be close to their policyholders and best meet their expectations. By placing their trust in us from the start, French insurers have played a major role in Shift’s success. The field of possibilities in AI-based decision optimization for the insurance industry is infinite and we are only at the beginning.”

The investment will also enable further recruitment to the team of data scientists, to bring its workforce to 300 experts from all backgrounds through the French Tech Visa scheme.

Translated from La start-up française Shift Technology devient une licorne après sa levée de fonds auprès d’Advent International