London’s pet insurance provider Bought By Many brings home $350 million bones, now valued at over $2 billion

London-based pet insurance provider Bought By Many has raised $350 million in a Series D round led by EQT Growth. The round also saw the participation of  Octopus Ventures and Munich Re Ventures. With this raise, Bought By Many now has a pre-money valuation of over $2 billion.

“Bought By Many’s digital-first approach is unrivaled in pet insurance, a market that is large and underpenetrated in most European countries and the US. It benefits from secular tailwinds such as the humanisation of pets and higher spend on pet care, and is also uniquely positioned to benefit as global digitalization continues to gather pace,” comments EQT’s Carolina Brochado. “In less than five years, Steven and the team have built Bought By Many to be one of Europe’s leading insurtechs,”

Founded in 2012 by Steven Mendel and Guy Farley, Bought By Many started out as a service helping consumers find better deals on niche insurance. After five years of evolution, the company went all-in on pet insurance in 2017, launching their own branded policies, underwritten by Great Lakes Insurance, a part of Munich Re.

Bought By Many saw a massive uptick in business as the world shuttered its doors, and we were all forced to stay at home and save lives. In the UK alone, 3.2 million stay-at-homers decided that the pandemic was the right time to get that pet they’d always wanted. And with anything you love and cherish, you want to ensure its wellbeing, enter Bought By Many.

While pet ownership is on the rise, only 25% of UK pet owners and 2% of US pet owners have insurance policies for their loved ones, a statistic Bought By Many is on a mission to change. Namely, through offering a variety of packages, all tailored to suit specific owners' financial situations. Additionally, the company has learned from the markets it operates in: from Sweden, Bought By Many has incorporated the importance of unlimited free video vet services. From the US market, the company incorporated a Wellness Cover option that rides alongside traditional insurance coverage.

The Many Group operates as Bought By Many in the UK, and ManyPets in Sweden and the US, and provides a wide range of insurance products for over half a million pets globally.

The company has doubled gross written premium (GWP) for three consecutive years, a figure that tops $220 million in the past year alone.

Co-founder Steve Mendel said in a LinkedIn post, “The most frequent question I am asked is ‘When is your IPO?’ My answer is clear. We have too much to do right now to be able to find the time for that.”