Ancep has secured $8.5M to build AI agents, software that carries out tasks on its own, for the routine work behind commercial insurance, the cover that businesses buy. Swedish venture capital firm Creandum led the round. US firm Kleiner Perkins and Vicus Ventures also invested.
Several individuals also put in their own money as angel investors. They include Christa Davies, the former chief financial officer of insurance broker Aon, along with people who work at OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind. Ancep did not say what stage the round was or what the company is now worth.
The London startup plans to spend the money on growth and hiring. Co-founder and chief executive Gagan Khurana said the company is starting with “the twenty largest” brokers in the world.
Small Risks Brokers Turn Away
Commercial insurance brokers find cover for businesses through a process called placement. They gather details about a client, prepare the paperwork and ask insurers for prices and terms.
A small policy can take almost as much work to place as a large one, but it earns a much smaller commission. As a result, brokers often turn down smaller risks, the businesses or assets they are asked to insure, or leave them waiting. Ancep estimates that up to 30% of the risks a broker sees fall below the point where placing them pays off. The company says about half of those could still be placed at a profit.
By Ancep’s estimate, large brokerages miss out on business worth 5% to 10% of their revenue this way. “What we sell is net new revenue,” Khurana said.
Ancep also points to falling insurance prices as added pressure on brokers. Global commercial insurance rates dropped 6% in the second quarter of 2026, the eighth straight quarterly decline, according to broker Marsh’s quarterly market index. UK rates fell 8%.
How The Agents Work
Ancep’s agents take on the routine steps of placement. They read client submissions, the details a business sends when it applies for cover. They then prepare standard broker documents and approach insurers for terms by email, through online portals or through direct software connections.
The agents work inside software that brokers already use. That includes systems that hold policy records, online platforms where brokers trade with insurers and customer relationship management (CRM) tools that track clients. Ancep says brokers do not need a custom setup for each platform.
People stay in charge of the final decision. Only an authorised broker can bind cover, which means formally committing the insurer to the policy. Broking teams also review what the agents produce before any of it takes effect.
Khurana said the technology is meant to strengthen brokers rather than replace them. “Brokers have huge leverage, and no chatbot is going to replace it,” he said.
Ancep says each customer’s data is kept walled off from the others. The company also says it does not pool data or train its systems across brokerages without explicit consent.
Early Customers And Pricing
Ancep says it already works with brokers in Austria, the UK and the US. The only customer it names is ACIC Financial Advisory, an Austrian broker. ACIC specialises in credit insurance, which covers a business when its customers fail to pay, and surety, a guarantee that one party will keep its side of a contract.
Ancep’s other clients include a top-10 UK broker and the specialty lines unit of a top US broker, which handles unusual risks that standard policies do not cover. According to Ancep, the chief operating officer of one client division reported a 10% rise in revenue within six weeks of starting to use the agents.
ACIC says it has taken on more clients without adding administrative staff. “We did not do this to cut costs but to get our specialists’ time back,” said Christoph Zawadil, managing director of ACIC. The firm says its staff now spend the freed-up time on advising clients, entering new markets and designing products.
Ancep sets up one task at a time. The company says it can show a working prototype within two days of signing a non-disclosure agreement. Customers pay Ancep a share of the value the agents create, so the startup says it earns money only when brokers place more policies.
The Team Behind Ancep
Khurana founded Ancep in 2026 with Jake Turner, who serves as chief technology officer. The two met at the University of Oxford and later worked together at Scope, a London company that sells AI software for industrial inspection.
At Scope, Turner led engineering and Khurana ran sales. Scope raised $20M in May 2026 in a Series A round, usually a startup’s first large round after its early seed money, led by Index Ventures. Before Scope, Khurana worked at consulting firm McKinsey, where insurance projects introduced him to the problems brokers face. Turner had interviewed more than 50 brokers during an earlier venture.
“Commercial insurance is a large market where too much business still goes unserved because the economics don’t work,” said Mamoon Hamid, a partner at Kleiner Perkins.
The deal comes shortly after Creandum closed a $750M fund in November 2026. Simon Schmincke, a partner at the firm, said most AI in this market is “a bet against the intermediary”. He added: “Ancep is the first company we have seen that makes it more valuable instead.”
A Busy Field For Insurance AI
Ancep joins a growing group of startups using AI in commercial insurance. In November 2025, US startup Anzen raised $16M in a Series A round led by venture firm Madrona to help brokers handle submissions, quotes and binding.
Harper, another startup, runs its own commercial insurance agency for small and mid-sized businesses, with AI handling most of the work. The company raised $46.8M across seed and Series A rounds in February 2026.
Ancep takes a different approach and sells to brokers instead of competing with them. Its agents work inside brokers’ existing systems, and brokers keep the client relationship and the final say on every policy.
Ancep now has $8.5M and early customers in Austria, the UK and the US. The company is pitching its agents to brokers as a source of extra revenue rather than a way to cut costs. The results published so far come from Ancep and its customers, and the startup says it is paid only when brokers place more policies.
