1. The Funding Reset is Permanent — and Consolidation is Accelerating

Let’s start with the market reality that most founders are quietly aware of but rarely say out loud: the capital environment that existed in 2020 and 2021 is not coming back.

According to FinTech Global analysis, European InsurTech funding dropped to $1.7 billion in 2024 — a 25% fall from 2023 and 62% down from the 2020 peak. CB Insights’ State of InsurTech Q3 2025 report shows early-stage deal sizes shrank a further 24% year-on-year in 2025. This is not a temporary dip. It is a structural recalibration, and it is forcing the market to do something useful: separate businesses with real, recurring value from those built on growth-at-all-costs assumptions.

At the same time, M&A activity is picking up. InsurTech exits reached their highest quarterly level since 2022 in Q3 2025. Strategic acquirers are actively seeking proven B2B software with deep integration into carrier and broker workflows. And notably, the founders achieving the best outcomes are not waiting until growth stalls or investors force the issue. They’re engaging early, from a position of strength, with partners who understand the long-term nature of building in insurance.

The question isn’t whether consolidation is coming. It’s who it happens to and on whose terms.

2. AI is Moving from Pilots to Production — and Governance is Now Part of the Product

If you’re an InsurTech founder, the question is no longer whether AI belongs in your product. The question is whether you can help customers run it safely, explainably, and at scale in real insurance workflows.

By 2026, buyers have stopped asking whether your product uses AI. They are asking how well it works in practice. What buyers now care about is whether it works in production — in claims triage, underwriting support, broker servicing — and whether it comes with the controls needed to run it responsibly. Many insurers are also moving beyond copilot tools that assist individuals toward more agentic approaches that support full workflows. That shift increases the need for explainability, audit logs, bias controls, and human oversight for high-impact decisions.

EIOPA’s August 2025 Opinion on AI Governance makes the regulatory direction clear: AI in insurance should be managed within existing governance and risk frameworks, not treated as a separate innovation exercise. The EU AI Act’s general application date of August 2026 is adding further urgency.

For software providers, this means governance is no longer legal fine print. It is part of the product. The InsurTech businesses gaining ground right now are those that have made AI governance, decision traceability, and resilience controls visible features of what they sell — not afterthoughts.

At Codeoscopic, the leading Spanish InsurTech and an Upliift portfolio company, CEO Ángel Blesa has seen this firsthand. Working daily at the intersection of insurers and brokers, the business has built its growth on the principle that technology only delivers value when it fits real workflows and is governed properly.

As Ángel says:

“AI only creates value in insurance when it works within the processes people actually use every day. Our customers do not need more technology for its own sake. They need technology that makes their work faster, clearer, and easier to defend to their own stakeholders.”

3. Modular, API-First Architecture is Winning Procurement Decisions

Legacy cores and broker systems remain one of the biggest blockers to speed, AI adoption, and new product launches across European insurance. In 2026, that pressure is intensifying, but the response from buyers has become more nuanced.

Insurers and brokers are no longer looking for a single vendor to rip-and-replace their entire stack. They want progress without a multi-year transformation before value appears. That means modular, composable architectures, and API-first systems that plug into existing environments rather than demand a wholesale replacement.

For founders, this has a direct effect on go-to-market. Integration quality is no longer a technical footnote; it is part of the buying decision. When sales cycles are long and customer environments are complex, products that reduce implementation friction have a much better chance of moving from interest to adoption. In this environment, “fits into your stack” often beats “replaces your stack.”

4. Brokers Aren’t Disappearing — They’re Replatforming

One of the more persistent misconceptions in InsurTech is the idea that digital-first, embedded insurance models will eventually sideline the broker. The evidence points in a different direction. Brokers are not disappearing. They are replatforming.

The market is moving toward embedded and ecosystem-based distribution — integrating products into platforms customers already use, enabled by APIs. But this shift doesn’t reduce the broker’s importance; it changes their role. Brokers, MGAs, and distribution platforms increasingly need systems that allow them to distribute across channels, connect to partners, and support white-labelled or embedded journeys without adding manual work.

APIs are becoming the real distribution layer. Platforms that help brokers scale digitally can gain genuine leverage in the insurance value chain.

“We accompany them throughout this entire journey, providing top-level insurance technology so they can be as efficient as possible — in claims, pricing, customer management, and everything related to communications between insurers and their brokers, so that together they can carry out their work as efficiently as possible.”

Ángel Blesa, CEO, Codeoscopic (an Upliift portfolio company)

Broker consolidation is also reshaping the landscape. Larger broker groups are investing in technology to maintain their competitive edge as the market concentrates. For InsurTech software businesses with strong broker relationships, this creates meaningful opportunity — provided the product can scale alongside consolidating customer bases.

5. Regulation is Becoming a Competitive Moat

The EU’s evolving regulatory environment is raising the cost of entry for new vendors and quietly rewarding those already embedded and compliant. This is a dynamic many founders are undervaluing.

Three regulatory signals now sit directly behind buyer behaviour:

• DORA has applied since January 2025, requiring insurers and their technology suppliers to demonstrate operational resilience and third-party risk management.
• EIOPA’s AI governance opinion sets clear supervisory expectations for how AI should be managed within existing risk frameworks.
• The EU AI Act has a general application date of August 2026, with staggered obligations already in effect.

In practice, AI governance, data lineage, decision traceability, and resilience controls are becoming standard RFP questions. Buyers are actively cautious of black-box systems — not only for ethical reasons, but because those systems are harder to justify internally when something goes wrong.

For InsurTech companies, the opportunity is clear: software that reduces regulatory anxiety, demonstrates its controls visibly, and moves confidently through due diligence has a structural advantage over competitors who are still catching up. In Europe, compliance is increasingly becoming a commercial advantage, not just a cost.

Turning Trends into Growth: A Founder Self-Check

These trends are easy to describe and hard to act on. What tends to separate companies that scale from those that stall is not awareness of the themes, but discipline in executing against them.

A few questions worth sitting with:

• Which two or three customer outcomes do we improve most reliably today?
• What stops roll-outs in practice: data, integration, governance, or change management?
• Can we explain our AI approach to a risk officer in plain English?
• Are we ready for DORA-era resilience and third-party scrutiny?
• Do we make brokers and insurers faster together, or add friction between them?

Those questions often reveal whether a business is genuinely ready for the next phase of growth, or whether there is structural work to do first.

A Different Kind of Partner for a Different Kind of Moment

At Upliift, we work with founders of specialised insurance software businesses who are thinking about the long term. Not the next fundraise. Not the next twelve months. The next chapter.

Modernising an insurance value chain does not happen in one budget cycle. Governance, trust, resilience, and real integration take time. The businesses that get it right build on their culture and customer relationships, maintain focus as complexity grows, and treat structural challenges as competitive advantages rather than obstacles.

“The main help and support that Upliift provides us is the ability to think long term. When we design solutions, we do not have to think only about the next three months or the next year, but about solutions that truly have an impact in the long term — which is where we believe the real margin for growth and support for our clients lies.”

 Ángel Blesa, CEO, Codeoscopic

If you are leading a specialised insurance software business in Europe and these themes feel familiar, we would welcome a conversation. No hard sell. Just an honest discussion about what you are seeing in your market, what 2026 is likely to demand, and what the right next chapter could look like for your business.

This blog is written with input from Ángel Blesa, CEO of Codeoscopic. It’s a part of the series exploring the forces shaping European InsurTech. Read the other posts: Why ROI matters more than ever in InsurTech and Europe’s insurers gear up for an AI-driven transformation.

• What are your motivations for selling and your goals after acquisition?
• Do you want to stay involved, and for how long?
• What values and long-term vision should an investor protect?
• How should you approach valuation, deal structure and timing
• What does the process look like in practice?

We will be joined by Dries Vanbiervliet, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Aexis Medical, for a candid discussion on the realities of selling your business. The session will conclude with a live Q&A.

Who should attend: Founders and CEOs of European specialised Healthcare software companies considering a full or partial exit

Sebastian has spent the last 10 years working in M&A across 3 different vertical market software acquirers, closing over 30 acquisitions in that time. He is responsible for the M&A process from beginning to end, and is familiar with the concerns, challenges and excitement that selling your business brings, especially for first time sellers.

Dries Vanbiervliet is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Aexis Medical, a specialised hospital software provider. With a background in medical IT, he co-founded and built the company from scratch into a successful, lean healthcare software business serving hospitals across Europe.

We appreciate your confidentiality and the webinar setting will allow you to attend anonymously and submit questions confidentially.

• The evolving landscape for AI and health data – what EU and UK developments mean in practice for product strategy, scale and commercial opportunity
• Standards, coding & normalisation – why robust data foundations underpin interoperability, AI performance and long-term value
• AI implementation – what works, what doesn’t, and why, from data readiness to real-world adoption
• How data & AI impact company valuation – how investors and acquirers assess data quality, defensibility, scalability and risk.

Who should attend: Founders and CEOs of European healthcare software companies

We hope you can join us on 26 February at 14:00 UTC/15:00 CET for a practical and candid discussion, with time for live Q&A.

Speakers

Alex has built and scaled national healthcare data platforms, including EMIS-X analytics infrastructure spanning 35 million longitudinal primary and community care patient records. Her experience architecting large-scale, real-world health datasets gives her a unique perspective on how data architecture, AI strategy, and product decisions translate directly into enterprise value.

Former founder of the NHS AI Lab, Indra has led the development and deployment of the NHS Federated Data Platform, encompassing 50 million secondary care patient records. She brings deep experience in translating national-scale data infrastructure and AI innovation into measurable healthcare impact across complex enterprise environments.

Host

Portfolio Director, Healthcare at Upliift, working with founders to ensure AI strategies are implemented effectively to create long-term value. He is co-author of the Founders’ Guide to Implementing an AI Strategy.

We appreciate your confidentiality and the webinar setting will allow you to attend anonymously and submit questions confidentially.

“What has changed most is not insurers’ appetite for technology, but their expectations. Today, if you can’t explain how a solution will improve a core business metric, it rarely gets past the first serious review.” Ángel Blesa, CEO of Codeoscopic.

From innovation stories to measurable outcomes

European insurers continue to invest heavily in digital transformation. But the governing question has changed.

It is no longer “Is this innovative?”
It is “What measurable impact will this have — and when?”

Whether you are selling to a Tier-1 carrier like Allianz or AXA, or to a small broker group, buying decisions are now anchored in operational and financial outcomes. Innovation teams may sponsor projects, but finance and operations increasingly determine whether those projects scale beyond a pilot.

For InsurTech founders, this has a clear implication: selling on vision or features alone is no longer enough. Winning requires translating your product into outcomes your buyers are measured on.

The metrics that now drive buying decisions

There is a consistent scorecard of metrics senior buyers care about and the ones your solution must credibly influence.

These are not abstract KPIs, rather the levers that determine profitability, competitiveness, and capital efficiency. When buyers push you on ROI, this is what they are trying to connect your product to.

Why this creates friction for many InsurTechs

Most InsurTechs offer software designed to solve real problems, but not necessarily to sell those solutions in financial terms.

Founders are often strongest at explaining product capabilities, demonstrating technical differentiation, and articulating long-term vision. Deals can start to stall when buyers ask harder questions:

• Which metric will this move first?
• How big could that impact realistically be?
• How will success be measured during a pilot?
• When should this show up in the P&L?

This is not because the value isn’t there. It’s because ROI in insurance is genuinely difficult to quantify.

Ángel Blesa captures this tension clearly:

“From the insurer side, ROI is rarely black and white. Data is fragmented, processes vary by line of business, and benefits emerge over time. But that doesn’t mean ROI isn’t required — it means it has to be discussed honestly and pragmatically.”

Benefits often arrive in phases. Some improvements, such as cycle time or productivity, are demonstrated quickly. Others, like retention or loss ratio, take longer. Without agreement upfront, pilot projects risk being ‘successful’ without ever becoming scalable.

Understanding this complexity and helping buyers navigate it is now part of the selling motion.

What ROI-based selling actually looks like in practice

ROI-based selling does not mean producing perfect business cases or over-promising results. In practice, it means a small number of disciplined shifts.

1. Move from features to outcomes
   Frame capabilities in terms of the operational or financial metrics they affect, even if the impact is directional rather than exact.
2. Define success before pilots begin
   Agree upfront on which metrics matter, what baseline will be used, and what level of improvement would justify scale-up.
3. Quantify value with credible assumptions
   Benchmarks, conservative ranges, and proxy metrics are usually enough. Buyers want seriousness and realism, not false precision.
4. Engage the economic buyer early
   Innovation teams may champion your solution, but Finance ultimately decides whether it survives.

Founders who adopt this approach find that conversations shift. Sales become less about persuasion and more about joint problem-solving around real business outcomes.

Why buyers are more demanding than before

Two broader forces reinforce this shift.

1. Sustained margin pressure is forcing insurers and brokers to be far more disciplined about where they invest.
2. Regulation is raising the bar. Frameworks such as DORA and the EU AI Act increase expectations around governance, data quality, and operational resilience. Buyers need confidence that new technology will scale safely, compliantly, and with clear returns.

For InsurTech founders, tougher questions are not a sign of resistance, rather they are a sign of accountability.

What we see working with successful InsurTechs

At Upliift, we work closely with European software founders selling into insurance. The companies that scale share a common characteristic: their value shows up in the metrics insurers already manage by.

They build products that integrate into daily workflows, reduce manual effort, improve decision quality, and strengthen compliant distribution. As a result, their impact is visible in cycle time, accuracy, leakage, conversion, and cost, not just in demos.

Ángel Blesa puts it simply:

“Insurers commit long-term to vendors who help them run better every day. When software clearly improves efficiency, accuracy, or commercial performance, it stops being discretionary and becomes part of the operating model.”

Practical takeaways for InsurTech founders

If you are selling into insurers or brokers today, a few actions can materially improve your chances of success:

• Audit your sales narrative: where is ROI explicit, not implied?
• Map your product clearly to insurer and broker KPIs.
• Stop running pilots without agreed success criteria.
• Equip founders and senior sales leaders to lead ROI conversations confidently.
• Treat regulation and governance as part of your selling context, not an afterthought.

Upliift’s role in helping InsurTech Companies win

Upliift partners with European software founders building mission-critical products for regulated industries, with insurance as a core focus. Our approach is based on Permanent Equity, aligning our investment time horizon with the realities of insurance. Modernising the core of an insurance value chain does not happen in a single budget cycle. It requires governance, product focus, and a commercial model that encourages long-term resilience.

As Ángel Blesa reflects:

“Upliift is the right partner for Codeoscopic at the right time. They bring a long-term mindset that allows us to keep building for the future — to remain ambitious and focused on what matters most: innovation, people, and our customers.”

For founders navigating the shift toward ROI-driven buying, having a partner who understands both insurance and enterprise selling, coupled with a long-term outlook can make a meaningful difference.

If these challenges sound familiar, we’re open to a conversation about what your next step might be.

Care home operators cannot respond to this reality with paper and legacy systems. They need agile, digital infrastructure that makes frontline work easier, strengthens compliance and gives management real-time visibility across homes and regions. A care home software solution is no longer “nice to have” – it is becoming mission-critical.

At the same time, the care home market in Europe itself has been consolidating. Over the past few years, a growing share of beds has moved into professionalised groups; it is estimated that 40% of the market is private. Looking at larger groups, the 28 largest privately owned care home operators in Europe manage around 5,000 facilities with capacity for about 450,000 residents – roughly 13% of all care home beds across Europe. Annual investment in European care home properties rose from about €2.3 billion in 2019 to approximately €5.7 billion in 2021 – a jump of roughly 148% in just two years. This shift concentrates buying power in fewer, larger customers – and reshapes what “good” looks like for care home software. 

What your best customers expect from you now

The most attractive customers are no longer single homes. They are professionalised care groups operating across regions – and in many cases, across multiple European countries. Their expectations are higher and more predictable. 

Customers expect reliability. Platforms underpin rota management, care planning, medication management, incident reporting and quality audits. Downtime is not just inconvenient; it is a real operational risk. Consistent uptime, robust architecture, intuitive interfaces and strong data protection are simply assumed.

Customers expect compliance by design. Regulatory scrutiny has tightened across Europe, with more frequent inspections, higher documentation standards and evolving privacy rules. Solutions must help operators stay ahead of this – with configurable workflows, audit trails, role-based access and reporting aligned to local frameworks in each of the markets where they operate. 

Customers expect ease of use by overstretched staff. Many homes run with vacancy rates of 8-10% and staff turnover over 25%. Care workers and nurses have limited time and tolerance for the in-depth training or workarounds required by clunky tools. Intuitive interfaces, clear workflows and strong onboarding support can be the difference between deep adoption and a stalled pilot.

And increasingly, they expect a long-term partner, not a one-off IT supplier. The most advanced groups in Europe want a supplier that understands their expansion strategy, can adapt with them, and is financially stable enough to be there in ten years – not just until the next funding cycle.

Consolidation is changing the game for care home software

Consolidation in the European care home market is a double-edged sword for software founders. On one side, if you become the preferred platform for a growing group, every acquisition they make can expand your footprint.

On the other hand, the competition and requirements to win these groups is higher than ever. They look for scale, credibility and staying power. They want to know that their core system will still be supported – and still innovating – years from now.

This is often the moment when founders start to ask different questions:

• How do we move from incremental growth to truly leading our niche in our sector or geography?
• How do we keep investing in the product while professionalising sales, implementation and customer success?
• How do we expand from our home market into adjacent European markets without distracting the team?

The answer is rarely “raise another round and do the same again”. It is about choosing the right long-term investment partner, one that is willing to invest in the growth journey that many founders have already mapped out; or to support the development of that plan as well as provide the finance needed to make it happen.

How a Permanent Equity partner can help you design the next chapter

A Permanent Equity partner is built for exactly these kinds of businesses: mission-critical, sector-focused software with long sales cycles but sticky customers. Unlike traditional private equity or classic venture capital, permanent equity is not constrained by a fixed fund life or a forced exit timeline. The focus is on building a durable European software leader – at a pace that fits the market and your team.

For European care home software founders, that can translate into very concrete advantages:

• Greater credibility with new customers, especially larger groups. When you approach a consolidating care group, being backed by a long-term, permanent equity investor signals stability. It reassures boards and procurement teams that you can support multi-year roll-outs and keep investing in the product. A partner with a strong network across European healthcare can also open doors and make senior-level introductions that would otherwise take years to build.
• Easier access to new markets. Expanding from your home market into the wider European landscape requires local knowledge, regulatory understanding and language capabilities. A Permanent Equity partner can help you stage that journey – from market selection, to adapting your product for local regulation, to building local go-to-market and implementation capacity.
• A wider picture that combines market-specific dynamics with longer-term trends. In many CEE countries, dedicated care home software solutions are still rare, and operators are often relying on modified Hospital Information System (HIS) solutions instead.

Beyond this, the right partner can help you professionalise your commercial engine (from pricing and packaging to enterprise sales and customer success), build repeatable implementation playbooks for group roll-outs, and act as a strategic sounding board as your customers themselves consolidate. Crucially, this happens while respecting your mission, culture and product vision – not rewriting them.

Designing your next chapter

European care homes are under real pressure, and the software choices they make today will shape the sector for decades. You have already proven that your product solves important problems for residents, families and frontline staff.

The opportunity now is to match the scale and sophistication of your best customers: to become the partner of choice for leading care groups across Europe, and to support them as they grow into new regions and new models of care.

Permanent Equity gives you a way to do this on your terms – with easier access to new customers (especially larger groups who value long-term stability) and easier access to new European markets, backed by a partner who is committed for the long run.

If you are a care home software founder in Europe and you are thinking about what comes next – whether that means accelerating growth, planning succession or simply de-risking your own role – this is the moment to explore your options. The right long-term partner can help you design a next chapter that protects your legacy and scales your impact on care. We’d love to talk, please contact us at upliift.com/contact/.

Today, Upliift is no longer just a company with a portfolio of individual investments. It is a growing network of software businesses across Europe, built by teams who know their markets deeply and provide the mission-critical software that keeps entire industries running.

As an example, we are particularly proud of supporting Aexis Medical in its expansion into the UK market and in opening its first office in Manchester. This kind of impactful hands-on support to enable CEOs / Founders to achieve their vision is exactly what we want Upliift to stand for. We back capable teams with strong products and give them the experience, support, and long-term commitment they need to grow sustainably.

The result? Even when deals get done, the long-term outcome for teams and customers can fall short of the founder’s hopes — and the company’s potential.

When we look back on 2025 however, the number one thing we’ll remember is not any one quantitative milestone, or any specific goal achieved, but rather the relationships forged with founders who have entrusted us with their life’s work. The CEOs and teams that have chosen to build their next chapter with Upliift. We do not take that trust lightly.

As we head into 2026, our focus remains simple. We want to be a responsible long-term home for exceptional software businesses and for the people behind them. We are entering the year with a strong pipeline, and while the journey of permanent capital is rarely linear, we expect 2026 to be an important year for capital deployment and organic growth. More importantly, we are starting to unlock the real strength of our network. In January, for the first time, we will bring together CEOs and CTOs from across our portfolio to create a forum for learning, honest exchange, and practical collaboration. A key focus will be on embedding AI into everyday workflows in ways that help teams build better products, faster and more efficiently. We have already seen the impact of thoughtful AI adoption and cross-company collaboration and expect this to accelerate in 2026 as new product models and capabilities emerge from how our teams work together.

As we look ahead to 2026, Upliift will continue to build in the same way we always have: patiently, responsibly, and with deep respect for the businesses and people we support. If we do that, we are confident the results will follow.

We would like to thank everyone who has been part of our journey this year, and to wish you and your loved ones happy Holidays and a successful New Year.

Why traditional routes often don’t fit

There’s no shortage of options for founders planning the next chapter: Private Equity, Venture Capital, Trade Sale, or Management Buyout. But many discover that these different options are not easy to navigate and can feel like forcing a square peg into a round hole. 

Traditional investors usually operate to short fund cycles and push for quick exits. That creates pressure for aggressive targets and restructurings that can prioritise short-term optics over long-term strength. In regulated markets like credit and lending, that can be especially risky: your customers value stability, continuity, and a steady roadmap as much as they value features.

The result? Even when deals get done, the long-term outcome for teams and customers can fall short of the founder’s hopes — and the company’s potential.

A better way: growing without letting go

For many European credit and lending software businesses, there’s another path that aligns more closely with their goals: Permanent Equity.

Permanent Equity means investing to hold, not to flip. There’s no five-year clock, no artificial exit pressure. Instead, the focus is on sustainable growth, building stronger, more resilient companies over time, side by side with the founder.

At Upliift, we believe this approach fits mission driven founders particularly well. Most built their companies to solve clear problems in credit, fairer underwriting, faster onboarding, lower fraud, better recoveries, not simply to chase a multiple. Permanent Equity lets them stay involved for as long (or as little) as they wish while strengthening the foundations that matter to lenders: governance, resilience, and a reliable product roadmap.

Why now? A turning point for European credit and lending software 

European lenders are navigating tighter rules on operational resilience, stricter expectations for AI governance in credit decisions, and consumer outcomes duties that reshape how products are designed and monitored. The arrival of instant payments raises the bar for real-time experiences in disbursements and collections, and rate conditions keep buyers focused on loss control and capital efficiency.

In this environment, buyers don’t just assess features, they assess defensibility. Vendors that can evidence explainability, monitoring, data protection, business continuity, and clean integration patterns will win faster and scale deeper.

Case study: Galileo Network — continuity that lenders can bank on 

Over nearly three decades, Galileo Network became a trusted leader in Italy’s financial guarantee (Confidi) market, providing software to intermediaries that enable and guarantee SME lending. When its parent company chose to divest with the owners approaching retirement, CEO Andrea Gelfi set out to find a partner aligned with clients’ need for continuity, not a timeboxed fund.

“Our future would not be possible with VC funding. We needed a partner that shared our long term aspirations – and we have this with Upliift.” says Andrea Gelfi, CEO, Galileo Network

Why Upliift? Gelfi engaged Upliift after learning about our permanent equity model and emphasis on relationships and transparency. He continues:

“We felt we could do something special together. Upliift was interested in more than just the company and its numbers. There was a real human factor where we built personal relationships and trust with each other along every step of the journey.”

Upliift was prepared to close the investment quickly, with the transaction completed in a little over six months, which is fast for Italy, while keeping governance and delivery steady. With around 75 colleagues assured of continued employment and growth, Galileo maintained sales momentum and invested in product, including the capacity to pursue addon acquisitions with M&A activities guided by Upliift.  

What founders can expect with Upliift 

For regulated buyers, such as Galileo, a permanent owner reduces counterparty risk and supports long-term roadmap commitments. We offer: 

• A partnership measured in decades. The AI driven transformation of European financial services is still in its early chapters. We partner with lending and credit software innovators for the long run — to help you build explainable, resilient, real-time platforms that win trust with banks and specialist lenders. 

• Growth without losing your soul. Keep the culture and mission that made you successful. Stay involved as much as you wish; step back when you’re ready. Either way, we’ll protect the elements your customers rely on continuity, roadmap clarity, and accountable governance. 

• From local success to international growth. We help founders build the foundations for long-term expansion, strengthening governance, resilience and leadership capacity while opening new markets across Europe. Our teams support everything from integration strategy and cross border compliance to local hiring and go-to-market execution. Because we invest without an exit horizon, we stay through each growth phase, ensuring international expansion happens sustainably and strengthens the culture, reputation, and customer trust you’ve already built. 

Securing the future, together 

For European founders who want to scale sustainably while preserving their culture, Permanent Equity offers a rare combination – long-term support, deep sector understanding, and genuine respect for your mission. 

It’s not about changing what you’ve built; it’s about helping it reach its full potential, along with the stability your customers require. 

If you’re a lending or credit software founder exploring your next chapter, whether that means scaling, stepping back, or securing your legacy – we’d love to talk. 

Why traditional investment routes often don’t fit

There’s no shortage of options for founders thinking about their company’s future, from Private Equity and Venture Capital to Trade Sales or Management Buyouts. But many quickly discover that most of these paths feel like hammering a square peg into a round hole.

Traditional investors often expect fast growth and even faster returns. Venture Capital and Private Equity funds typically operate on short timelines, pushing for aggressive targets and quick exits. That pressure can force companies to prioritise short-term performance over long-term strength.

The numbers tell the story. Around 20% of leveraged buyouts backed by Private Equity firms go bust within a decade. And in succession planning, when founders try to pass the business to the next generation, 70% of companies fail before reaching the second. Even when things go well, the return for the founder is often less than hoped.

So, while there appear to be many options, few allow founders to exit or scale in a way that truly preserves their legacy.

A better way: growing without letting go

For many specialised healthcare software businesses, there’s another path that aligns far better with their goals: Permanent Equity.

Permanent Equity means investing to hold forever. There’s no pressure to sell in five years; no restructuring just to drive returns. Instead, it’s about sustainable growth — building stronger, more resilient companies over time.

At Upliift, we believe this approach is particularly well-suited to mission-driven founders. Many have built their companies out of a desire to solve specific healthcare challenges, not just to generate profit. Permanent Equity allows them to continue that mission while benefiting from the experience, resources, and network of a long-term partner.

It’s a model that values the founder’s vision as much as their balance sheet. You can stay involved in the company’s journey for as long — or as little — as you like, while ensuring it continues to thrive.

Why now? A turning point for healthcare software

Healthcare software in Europe is entering a new era. Regulations like the European Health Data Space (EHDS) are creating more opportunities for companies with interoperable solutions to expand across borders.

At the same time, consolidation is reshaping the sector. Larger players are acquiring smaller ones, sometimes successfully, but often at the expense of what made those smaller companies unique. For many founders, the challenge is finding a partner who can help scale their business without diluting its culture or purpose.

That’s where Permanent Equity truly stands out. It supports growth while safeguarding identity, giving founders the chance to expand thoughtfully and sustainably.

Aexis Medical: expansion with purpose

For Dries Vanbiervliet, founder and Managing Director of Aexis Medical, the turning point came when his company had saturated the Belgian market and needed a structured approach to expand internationally.

“Our business had saturated the Belgian market, and we needed a structured approach to other territories, including the UK,” Dries explains.

“We wanted a partner that knew our market and would support long-term success – not an investor looking for a quick exit.”

With Upliift’s industry expertise and the guidance of Healthcare Advisory Board Members Dr Indra Joshi and Alexandra Eavis, Aexis achieved one of its biggest milestones: opening its first UK office and beginning expansion into a key new market.

“One of the things that resonated most was Upliift’s Permanent Equity approach,” Dries adds.

“They would invest in our software, invest in the company, help create subsidiaries in other markets, focus on growth, and stay on board for the long term.”

His advice for other founders considering investment?

“Transparency is key. Be clear about what you do and don’t want from an investor. Upliift took all of that into account for us. If you want to stay with the business for the short or long term — or if you want to exit — Upliift would be a great partner for you.”

Securing the future, together

For healthcare software founders who want to scale sustainably while preserving their culture, Permanent Equity offers a rare combination: long-term support, deep sector understanding, and genuine respect for your mission.

It’s not about changing what you’ve built, rather it’s about helping it reach its full potential.

With Permanent Equity from Upliift, you can grow confidently, protect your team, and ensure your legacy continues to make an impact — today and for years to come.

If you’re a healthcare software founder exploring your next chapter — whether that means scaling, stepping back, or securing your legacy — we’d love to talk.

In what follows, we share our view that:

• AI adoption becomes mainstream: Over 50% of non-life and 24% of life insurers in Europe now use AI, embedding it across underwriting, claims, and customer service.
• Operational gains are tangible: AI-driven tools cut fraud and claim costs, speed up processing by up to 50%, and improve pricing accuracy and customer experience.
• Regulation drives responsible innovation: The EU AI Act and EIOPA guidance enforce transparency, data quality, and human oversight, creating a stable framework for progress.
• Scaling to the enterprise level remains a challenge: While specific AI use cases already deliver results, most insurers struggle to scale these successes across the entire business. Legacy systems, fragmented data, limited expertise, and unclear value frameworks slow the transition from pilots to full-scale impact.
• Upliift partners with InsurTech innovators for the long run: The secular trend on AI-driven transformation is in its early days and will take more than the next 2-3 years to fully play out – Upliift partners with InsurTech software companies over decades to drive these fundamental transformations

Artificial intelligence reshapes European insurance

Across Europe, artificial intelligence is becoming central to the insurance industry’s next chapter. What began as a series of experiments has evolved into a widespread movement to embed AI across underwriting, claims, customer service, and risk management.

EIOPA’s latest data shows that around half of non-life insurers and one quarter of life insurers already use AI in at least part of their operations. The trend is accelerating quickly. Within the next three years, those figures are expected to rise to 80 percent and 64 percent, respectively. For European insurers, AI is no longer a future possibility; it is a practical tool reshaping how the business works every day.

At Upliift, we see this transformation from the ground up. The companies we partner with are building software that allows insurers to analyse vast data sets, detect patterns, and make decisions faster, all while staying compliant with Europe’s demanding regulatory standards.

The Rise of AI in Insurance Operations

Artificial intelligence is reshaping how Europe’s insurers operate, from streamlining repetitive tasks to enhancing decision-making across the value chain. What began with early automation and analytics is now accelerating through the rise of generative AI, which is rapidly becoming part of everyday conversations in the industry.

The most advanced insurers are already using AI to automate high-volume processes, reduce costs, and improve accuracy.

• Fraud detection is one of the most mature applications. Machine learning systems analyse large data sets in real time to identify inconsistencies, helping carriers detect fraudulent or high-severity claims before payments are made. Some insurers report that AI-driven tools have reduced false positives and generated savings of millions of euros annually.
• Claims automation is another area of significant progress. Tools using computer vision and natural language processing assess photos, extract details from repair invoices, and automatically route claims to the right handler. In some cases, this has cut processing times by up to 50 percent.
• Pricing and underwriting are also being reshaped. Non-life insurers increasingly combine traditional actuarial data with new sources such as telematics, IoT sensors, and behavioural data. The result is more accurate risk selection, fairer pricing, and faster underwriting.
• Customer interaction is improving through AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants that provide 24-hour support, respond to policy queries, and guide customers through renewals or claims. This results in faster, more transparent communication at lower cost.

At the same time, generative AI is opening the next frontier. Large language models are being tested by European insurers for drafting policy documents, answering customer queries, and assisting developers in writing internal code. While these pilots are still in early stages, the momentum is clear.

EIOPA’s ongoing research into generative AI reflects growing interest in its potential to automate communication-heavy processes such as regulatory reporting, claims correspondence, and underwriting documentation. According to recent industry surveys, more than half of European insurance executives believe generative AI will deliver measurable ROI within the next three to five years.

The greatest opportunity lies in augmenting rather than replacing human expertise, enabling teams to focus on complex analysis, judgment, and customer relationships while AI manages routine data processing.

Uneven adoption across the market

Despite rapid progress, AI adoption remains uneven. Non-life insurers, particularly in motor, home, and small commercial segments, are leading the way. Life and health insurers are moving more cautiously, partly because their products involve sensitive personal data and stricter rules on fairness and explainability.

In fact, research shows that only around 14 percent of European financial firms currently have a fully established AI ethics framework, and roughly half have not yet started formal governance programmes. This gap underscores a major challenge for the sector: building the systems and controls needed to use AI responsibly.

Regulators across Europe are watching this closely. EIOPA and national supervisors are encouraging insurers to adopt AI, but only under robust oversight. The aim is to foster innovation that remains transparent, traceable, and free of discrimination.

Regulation: balancing innovation with accountability

Hospitals often have limited resources to support new software implementations. No matter how innovative your technology is, it won’t gain traction without effective onboarding, support, and clinical buy-in. The difference between a successful rollout and a failed pilot often comes down to training, support, and local relationships. Companies that invest in these areas, or partner with organisations that can help, are much more likely to achieve sustainable, long-term adoption.

Europe’s regulatory framework for AI is among the most advanced in the world. The EU AI Act, which came into force in 2024, defines high-risk use cases that include life and health insurance pricing and risk assessment. Companies using AI in these areas must comply with strict requirements on data quality, transparency, and human oversight.

For non-life insurers, most AI applications fall under lower-risk categories, but the same principles apply. Insurers must ensure that systems are explainable, decisions remain traceable, and humans retain control over outcomes.

In 2025, EIOPA issued an Opinion on AI Governance in Insurance, providing practical guidance on how to integrate these standards with existing frameworks such as Solvency II, the Insurance Distribution Directive, and GDPR. The message from supervisors is clear: innovation is encouraged, but only when trust and fairness are protected.

Regulation is not an obstacle; it is a stabilising force. It gives insurers and their partners clear parameters for innovation and protects the reputation of the industry as it embraces new technologies. Europe’s insurance landscape is also far from uniform. It is made up of diverse local markets, each with its own business practices and cultural nuances. This diversity means that regulatory approaches and the pace of innovation can differ, requiring insurers to balance consistency with local adaptation.

Scaling AI in European Insurance

Europe’s insurance sector is entering the scaling phase of AI adoption. Pioneers have already shown that automation, predictive analytics, and generative tools can deliver measurable benefits. The next challenge is to embed these capabilities across the enterprise, integrating AI into every stage of operations, from product development to claims resolution. Insurers will need to move from pilots to repeatable models, linking AI directly to expense ratios, loss ratios, and customer-retention metrics. Governance must evolve alongside technology, making transparency and human oversight an integral part of the design.

EIOPA’s research confirms that AI can reduce costs, improve accuracy, and strengthen customer relationships, outcomes that align with European values of trust, fairness, and resilience.

For the industry to move from the “pioneer” phase to the “mainstream” phase, larger insurers must overcome four key challenges:

1. Legacy systems remain a major constraint. Many carriers operate decades-old platforms that struggle to handle modern data and algorithms, and integrating AI into these environments often requires substantial investment and re-engineering.
2. Data quality and silos present another barrier. AI depends on large volumes of consistent, well-structured data. Fragmented systems make it difficult to train accurate models or apply insights across business lines.
3. Skills and culture are critical. Surveys suggest that 78% of financial services firms in Europe feel they lack sufficient AI expertise, and only about one-quarter have formal training programmes. Moving from pilots to production requires strong leadership and a cultural shift within the organisation.
4. Measuring ROI remains a developing practice. Early adopters report average savings of 11%, or roughly $6.24 million, but many insurers focus on broader benefits such as improved customer satisfaction, more effective fraud detection, and better risk monitoring.

These challenges are not unique to any single market; they represent the natural growing pains of an industry in transition. At Upliift, we are proud to work with the founders and teams who make this transformation possible. By providing investment, guidance, and sector expertise, we help software businesses deliver the intelligence, efficiency, and reliability that define the future of insurance.

Upliift’s perspective: enabling responsible and scalable AI

At Upliift, we believe Europe’s insurers are on the right path. The focus on governance and resilience is not slowing innovation; it is creating the conditions for sustainable progress. The AI-driven transformation of the industry is still in its early stages and will unfold over many years, not just the next two or three.

“With the help of Upliift, we have redoubled our commitment to remaining a leader in technology for the insurance sector. We are very optimistic, to be honest.”
–Ángel Blesa, CEO of Codeoscopic

Upliift partners with InsurTech software companies for the long run, supporting founders who are building the tools that enable this fundamental shift. Our portfolio includes data platforms that ensure lineage and quality, model governance tools that provide transparency, and workflow solutions that integrate AI into underwriting and claims.

Europe’s diversity is a strength in this process. The continent is made up of distinct local markets, each with its own business practices, regulatory expectations, and cultural nuances. Upliift, and the software companies we invest in, embrace this diversity, recognising that problems are solved differently from one market to another.

The greatest long-term advantage belongs to insurers that combine three elements: clean and compliant data, strong model governance, and clear performance metrics. When these are in place, AI moves from a technological initiative to a true driver of business results. Our role as a Permanent Equity partner is to support these innovators for the long term, helping them build durable, well-governed businesses that serve the insurance industry responsibly; acting in the context of Europe’s regulatory frameworks rather than trying to bypass them. By aligning growth with accountability, we aim to accelerate the development of trustworthy AI across Europe.