London-based InsurTech Ancep is developing AI agents for commercial insurance brokers, has raised $8.5m to help brokers take on insurance risks that are often rejected because the cost of processing them outweighs the potential commission.
Creandum led the seed round, which also included participation from Kleiner Perkins and Vicus Ventures. The investment attracted several angel backers, including former Aon CFO Christa Davies and executives from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google DeepMind. Ancep intends to use the proceeds to expand its operations and grow its team.
The company’s technology is already being used by ACIC Financial Advisory, one of Austria’s largest credit insurance brokers, a top 10 UK brokerage and the specialty lines division of a leading US broker. One customer has reported a 10% increase in divisional revenue during the first six weeks after implementation.
Ancep is addressing a longstanding inefficiency in commercial insurance distribution. Brokers must carry out much of the same administrative work to arrange a small policy as they do for a larger one, despite earning considerably less commission on the former. This can make lower-value risks commercially unattractive, leaving brokers to reject them or postpone their placement.
That challenge is becoming more pressing as insurance pricing comes under pressure. Global commercial insurance rates fell by 6% in the second quarter of 2026, extending the market’s declining pricing trend to eight consecutive quarters as insurers contend with excess capital and available capacity.
Ancep estimates that as much as 30% of the risks submitted to brokers fall below the point at which the work involved justifies the expected return. Of these, it believes approximately half could be placed profitably. The company estimates that the resulting lost business can account for 5% to 10% of a large brokerage’s revenue, presenting an opportunity for its AI agents to generate additional income without requiring more employees.
The platform takes on the administrative work involved in placing commercial insurance. Agents assess incoming submissions, prepare the necessary documentation and obtain quotes from insurers through email, digital portals and APIs.
Rather than building individual integrations for every system a broker uses, Ancep’s agents work within existing policy administration software, e-trading platforms and customer relationship management tools. This is intended to overcome a significant deployment challenge for larger brokerages, which can operate across dozens of different policy systems. Ancep says its approach can bring implementation timelines down from years to days.
The company maintains that its technology supports brokers rather than replacing their decision-making responsibilities. Policy binding remains restricted to authorised brokers, and employees review the agents’ work before outputs are used. Each brokerage also has its own ring-fenced environment, with information kept separate and excluded from cross-customer AI training unless permission is explicitly granted.
The founders bring experience from a previous AI business serving the testing, inspection and certification industry, where errors can have serious consequences for physical infrastructure. Ancep has applied a similar emphasis on oversight and reliability to its insurance workflows.
Rather than automating an entire brokerage operation at once, the company introduces its technology one process at a time. It prioritises workflows where administrative bottlenecks are greatest and where automation is expected to deliver the fastest commercial return. Ancep says it can produce a working prototype within two days of signing a non-disclosure agreement.
Its commercial model is also tied to the outcomes delivered for customers, with fees based on the value generated by the agents. This means Ancep’s revenue is linked to the additional business its technology helps brokers secure.
ACIC Financial Advisory provides an example of how the platform is being applied in practice. The credit insurance and surety specialist previously allocated substantial staff time to reviewing lengthy policy wordings, comparing insurer terms, preparing submissions and extracting information from large volumes of documents.
By taking on much of this preparatory work, Ancep’s agents have reduced the time required for detailed policy and contract reviews. ACIC has subsequently grown its client base without adding administrative employees, allowing its specialists to focus more on customer advice, market expansion and the development of new insurance products.
Ancep was established in 2026 by Gagan Khurana and Jake Turner, who met while studying at Oxford. The pair previously worked together at Scope AI, where Khurana led sales and Turner headed engineering. During their time there, the business grew its revenue from almost zero to $2m in less than a year before securing a $20m Series A investment from Index Ventures.
Khurana moved to the UK from Kabul as a refugee in 2001 and initially worked at his father’s stall in Shepherd’s Bush Market. He later joined McKinsey, where projects involving the insurance industry introduced him to the operational challenges faced by brokers. Turner was the first engineer at quantum computing company QuantrolOx and previously interviewed more than 50 brokers as part of an earlier venture.
Ancep co-founder and CEO Gagan Khurana said, “There have been enough vendors selling brokers time saved and cost reduced which just don’t resonate and get stuck in two year procurement cycles. What we sell is net new revenue. Plenty of people are betting brokers get disintermediated. We think the opposite: brokers have huge leverage, and no chatbot is going to replace it. So we are not building around them, we are building for them, and we are starting with the twenty largest in the world.”
A.C.I.C. Financial Advisory managing director Christoph Zawadil said, “Credit insurance and surety is specialist work, but a lot of a broker’s week goes on comparing insurer wordings, preparing market submissions, extracting information from large volumes of documents. Ancep understood that workflow deeply, rather than trying to sell us generic AI, which is why adoption across the business has been exceptionally high. We did not do this to cut costs but to get our specialists’ time back, and they are now using it to advise clients, expand into new markets and build insurance products we didn’t have the capacity to design previously.”
Creandum partner Simon Schmincke said, “Commercial insurance is a $3 trillion market that has absorbed ten years of software promises without much changing inside the largest brokers. Gagan and Jake built something that works within the systems those firms already run, meaning they are live and expanding across lines of business within weeks. Most AI in this market is a bet against the intermediary, but Ancep is the first company we have seen that makes it more valuable instead. We’re excited to back them in that mission.”
Kleiner Perkins partner Mamoon Hamid added, “Commercial insurance is a large market where too much business still goes unserved because the economics don’t work. Ancep is using AI to change that equation while keeping brokers at the center. We’re excited to support Gagan, Jake, and the Ancep team as they expand what brokers can profitably serve.”
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