We dive deep into our sectors. Our research drives our insights and thesis-driven approach.

The Equal Ventures Insurance Index is a quarterly summary of public equity performance in the P&C insurance industry. This post summarizes Q3 2024 performance of our insurance indices, and aims to highlight key themes and trends underlying the price action. As always, our goal is to help support observers of the insurance industry in identifying key drivers and catalysts (and not to recommend any specific investments).

Recently, we’ve seen incredible interest in AI-enabled services. We’ve long been believers in technology’s potential to unleash value in service businesses (previous investments include companies like Vettery, Block Renovations and Leap), but we think it’s essential to determine the scope and sustainability of technology’s impact on a company’s economic performance to determine if the thesis makes sense. We refer to this as “measuring the moat”.

We started Equal on the belief that we were entering a new technology super-cycle, one that would rapidly transform the way we work and live. Over the last 6 years, we’ve seen massive technology developments, enabling the thesis that we’ve held sacred since Day One – that these technologies would become so mainstream that they would enable rapid digital transformation of the old world economy. While value will undoubtedly be created by the foundation technology innovations themselves, the opportunity in thoughtfully deploying instances of these technologies throughout industries is far larger.

Almost three years ago, Equal published Lessons from Plaid for a Future Energy Unicorn, outlining a vision for the future of energy data. In the piece, we proposed the need for a platform that could unlock data hidden across siloed devices and stakeholders. Since developing this thesis, we’ve gained deeper conviction that we are at the cusp of energy’s “Digital Moment.”

As many know, Equal’s journey as an Emerging Manager has not been a straight forward one. I left my job at Lightbank in 2018 with zero knowledge of raising a fund or managing LP relationships. I had delivered returns for my prior fund and felt confident there was a gap in the market for our product, but I vastly underestimated the challenges ahead. I’ve unveiled some of those challenges and will choose to keep others private to my inner circle, but the process of starting and sustaining Equal remains one of the most trying experiences of my life.