The 2015 Fintech Finance 35: Francois Robinet, AXA Strategic Ventures

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< The 2015 Fintech Finance 35

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François Robinet
Chairman
AXA Strategic Ventures

If insurance, compared with banking and securities, is the financial technology laggard, a sleeping giant just beginning to stir, then AXA is breaking the mold. This past February, on the heels of a €950 million ($1.1 billion) commitment to digital growth initiatives, the €91 billion-in-revenue insurer announced the formation of AXA Strategic Ventures, a €200 million, Paris-based, multinational venture capital fund, with longtime AXA group executive François Robinet as chairman. “Insurance has always been technology-intensive, but it is old technology,” says the 48-year-old, who is scouting out potentially transformative innovations for the insurance, asset management and health care sectors. AXA Strategic Ventures already had five portfolio companies at its official launch, resulting from a France-centric pilot dating back to 2013, called Seed Factory. Among recent additions to those early holdings — which included FundShop and Particeep in portfolio management and crowdfunding, respectively — are Brooklyn, New York, online insurance start-up PolicyGenius and San Francisco–based mobile benefits platform Limelight Health. “We operate as a stand-alone, independent fund,” Robinet says, adding that he is still in the early stages of building out a global team beyond Paris, New York and San Francisco (where AXA Lab opened, to be closer to emerging Silicon Valley trends and potential high-tech alliances, in 2013). “Financial services in general, and insurance in particular, are being disrupted by digital innovation,” says Robinet, an actuary and former AXA chief risk officer. “We want to have as many tools as possible to capture innovation.” Since 2008, Robinet has been a director of MicroCred Group, which funds emerging-markets microlending and is part of the “financial inclusion theme” that he views as ripe for technological advancement.

The 2015 Fintech Finance 35