Meshed, the UK’s first AI-native insurance broker, today announced the successful closing of its oversubscribed pre-seed funding round of £950K (approximately €1.10 million as of 13 August 2025), backed by prominent UK-based venture capital funds Haatch, Aviva via Founders Factory and Exponential Science Foundation, along with notable angels. The funding will accelerate Meshed's mission to rebuild the commercial insurance brokerage model from the ground up, leveraging AI to eliminate tedious manual processes, and by targeting the administrative cost centre, Meshed can reduce its commission, enabling customers to pay less.
“After nearly 20 years in the industry, I’ve seen just how little has changed,” said Meshed CEO Mark Costello. “Insurance is still too reliant on paperwork, underinsurance is far too common, and fees are often higher than they should be. We built Meshed to change that, to bring costs down for SMEs, give them the right protection and make the whole process faster, simpler, and more transparent.”
Rooted in Glasgow and London and founded by insurance veterans and tech entrepreneurs, Meshed tackles a pressing issue: approximately 80% of UK SMEs are significantly underinsured, largely due to outdated brokerage practices and inefficient manual operations.
Arslan Hannani, Chief Innovation Officer of Aviva, said: “We always want to be on the leading edge of enabling our customers to protect themselves as much as they possibly need to and can. In order to do that, we need to keep finding the latest and the brightest [start-ups].”
Hannani also noted, “We have to think about the founding team, the idea, the quality of the founders,” and said that when it came to Meshed, “it was pretty easy for us to get on board.”
Meshed's AI-powered platform introduces agents to support different elements of the broker experience, including browser use agents for quoting and voice agents for data collection, freeing human brokers from repetitive admin to focus on client relationships and high-value advice.
“We’re pretty much rebuilding the entire insurance broking stack so it's AI-native, including the underlying data infrastructure, schemas, and integrations,” said Vincent Liu, CTO. “This allows us to let our AI agents loose and ultimately reduce the quoting experience from one hour to nine minutes.”
The pre-seed funding arrives alongside Meshed's recent regulatory authorisation by the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as an Appointed Representative. They have secured 51 insurer agency agreements and can support a wide range of commercial insurance needs, from property and liability to professional indemnity and cyber. Early customers have already reported up to 52% in savings on their insurance.
Meshed will use the raised funds to scale its technology and expand its team of engineers, data scientists, and insurance experts, further advancing the platform's capabilities in predictive analytics, risk management, and customer experience.
"The traditional insurance brokerage model is broken," said Jake Wells, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Meshed. "Brokers spend too much time buried in paperwork and chasing information, rather than advising and supporting clients. Our AI agents change this fundamentally, handling everything from quote generation to policy management, giving human brokers back the most valuable asset they have - time."