By Dipo Olowookere
Five small firms will undergo a 15-week Innovation Exchange programme of AXA Mansard designed to enable technology innovators looking to solve challenges within the insurance space.
The programme, in its third series, provides a platform for the selected startups to access industry experts, mentors, and experience-based learning through a series of masterclasses, office hours and co-creation sessions. Successful startups from the programme can also have AXA as one of their early paying customers.
The beneficiaries for the third cohort are Bunce – a customer engagement and management platform, Debbo Africa – a healthtech company, Drug Store – a pharmacy technology innovator; Legacy – an insuretech company, and Xchange Box – a fintech company.
These companies were chosen based on their ability to demonstrate solutions for New Insurance Models & Products and provide Value-Added Services such as gamification solutions for enhancing digital customer interactions, retention and emergency assistance services.
“As a leader in unlocking technology to accelerate the growth of insurance in Nigeria, the interests and entries in this programme are further conviction that our industry is advancing in the right direction.
“The sheer number of innovations that we have seen convinces us of the possibilities and opportunities that the insurance industry can bring to our national development.
“What this tells us is that there are innovators who have seen the challenges that we face as an industry; and they are creating different types and levels of opportunities by solving the problems.
“So, in the end, the innovators win, the customers win, the industry wins and ultimately our economy wins from being able to fully harness the benefits of insurance.
“We congratulate the newly admitted cohort members selected from all those who applied. We aim to be able to expand the programme as we go and get more innovators on board to help them accelerate,” the Chief Financial Officer of AXA Mansard Insurance Plc, Ms Ngozi Ola-Israel, said.
She disclosed that the application process, which began in July 2024, attracted over 50 entries from different innovators, and were exposed to different levels of rigorous reviews from experts across the company before arriving at the final five.
The innovation exchange programme was launched in 2022 and has since accelerated 10 startups, including Curacel, GeroCare, Clafiya, Chekker, LegitCar, MyItura & Inocul8.
Modupe Gbadeyanka 
Adedapo Adesanya