Ingka Investments make minority Investment in Urban Jungle

Ingka Investments has made a financial minority Investment in a UK based insurance startup called Urban Jungle, who are a leading company in using technology to provide fair home Insurance to renters and homeowners. The investment is part of Urban Jungle’s latest funding round with investors contributing to a total of £16,5 million (€21,5m / $23m) of equity capital to accelerate its growth and rapidly scale its UK Home insurance business, as well expand in new markets.

Founded in 2016, Urban Jungle is now one of the UK’s top-rated insurance providers, reaching the recent milestone of helping over 100,000 customers. The business uses the latest technology to help keep insurance affordable for its customers, whether that be by offering its customers 100% online services with no need to call, or through its use of AI and Machine Learning to catch fraud. The company aims to change the insurance industry by putting fairness and transparency at its core.

“We are delighted to have made this financial minority investment in Urban Jungle and are confident of their continued growth in the insurance market. They have developed an innovative solution with the potential to complement and disrupt the current insurance market and make insurance affordable for many more people. This aligns with our vision to create a better everyday life for the many people,” says Krister Mattsson, Managing Director of Ingka Investments. 

This latest funding round will be used to rapidly grow Urban Jungle’s customer base and roll out into other markets in the year to come. It will also allow it to create 100 new jobs in the UK.

“We are thrilled with this funding round, and it comes at an exciting time, as we are growing very quickly which has been attractive to both existing and new investors. We are building a modern insurance provider from scratch, leveraging the latest technology, and using that to create products with fair, transparent prices and easy to understand terms - all whilst making insurance simple, quick and affordable. Fraud is a big problem in our industry, and it drives up the cost for everyone else. The way we use technology gives us a critical edge by being able to screen out fraudsters, and help genuine customers get a much better deal, which is particularly important at the moment,” says Jimmy Williams, Urban Jungle Co-Founder and CEO.

Ingka Investments invests to fulfil the IKEA vision to create a better everyday life for the many people and invests in innovative companies that share our values and our ambition to have a positive impact on people and planet. It makes majority and minority investments in cutting-edge companies, including start-ups, that can create synergies or are important for our core business. This allows Ingka Group to be as relevant as ever with respect to our core business, and to broaden our investment landscape and diversify our financial risk and return profile. 

About Urban Jungle

Urban Jungle was founded in 2016 and provides Home Insurance to renters and homeowners. The company which has 50 UK staff, has amassed over 100,000 customers. Urban Jungle was positioned as the number 1 startup in the UK by TechRound in 2021 and is also one of the UK’s top-rated insurance providers.

About Ingka Group

Ingka Group (Ingka Holding B.V. and its controlled entities) is one of 12 different groups of companies that own and operate IKEA retail under franchise agreements with Inter IKEA Systems B.V. Ingka Group has three business areas: IKEA Retail, Ingka Investments and Ingka Centres. Ingka Group is a strategic partner in the IKEA franchise system, operating 392 IKEA stores in 32 countries. These IKEA stores had 657 million visits during FY21 and 4.6 billion visits to IKEA.com. Ingka Group operates business under the IKEA vision - to create a better everyday life for the many people by offering a wide range of well-designed, functional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible can afford it.

For further information, journalists and media professionals can contact us at press.office@ingka.com or by calling +46 70 993 6376.