Battery Ventures Invests in Descartes Underwriting; Marcus Ryu Joins Board - Descartes Underwriting

18 Jun 2025 8:00 AM

Battery Ventures Invests in Descartes Underwriting; Marcus Ryu Joins Board

 

18 June, 2025: Descartes Underwriting, a global leader in corporate parametric insurance for climate and emerging risks, today announces a strategic investment by Battery Ventures, a global technology-focused investment firm. The transaction, executed at a premium to Descartes’ most recent valuation (Series B), enables Battery to join the company’s shareholder base while all existing investors retain a large majority of their holdings.

Following the transaction, San Francisco-based Marcus Ryu, Partner at Battery Ventures, will join Descartes as a board observer. Ryu is the former CEO and co-founder of Guidewire Software (NYSE: GWRE), a $20 billion company providing cloud-based core systems and analytics for the P&C insurance industry.

“Over the past six years, Descartes has established itself as the leading parametric insurance business for climate-related risks, remaining true to our scientific approach to risk transfer. As we scale globally to address the widening protection gap around natural disasters, we’re thrilled to welcome Marcus — one of the world’s most accomplished Insurtech entrepreneurs — whose experience and vision will be invaluable as we execute our ambitious roadmap,” said Tanguy Touffut, CEO and co-founder.

“Battery’s investment is a major endorsement of our mission and a strong signal of our commitment to the North American market, already our largest market”, Touffut continued.

Marcus Ryu, partner at Battery Ventures and former CEO and co-founder of Guidewire Software said: “Over twenty years of serving the global P&C insurance industry informs my keen interest in applying technology to address the enormous underinsurance gap.  Parametric insurance is one of — if not the — most promising approaches to transfer risk efficiently, and like many industry participants I believe it will continue to grow in importance and adoption.

The team at Descartes Underwriting is uniquely credentialed in this domain, and I am very impressed with the market and thought leadership position they have built with brokers, capacity partners and insureds in a short period.”

 

Descartes operates in over 60 countries through 19 offices across four continents, serving a diverse client base with 230 professionals. In 2024, the company generated over $200 million in gross written premium. 

 

About Descartes

Descartes is a corporate insurance specialist that collaborates with brokers to protect their corporate and public sector clients against climate, cyber and other emerging risks. At the forefront of AI and Data analysis, Descartes utilises cutting-edge technology combined with a new generation of data sources, to model, assess and manage risks.

Offering a full range of insurance products, including cost-effective and fully transparent parametric solutions with predefined and swift claims payouts, Descartes has already provided over $10 billion capacity to its clients through corporate brokers.

Descartes is comprised of Descartes Insurance, a full-stack insurer operating in several European countries, and Descartes Underwriting, a global MGA backed by a panel of tier-one risk carriers. The company has been financed with over $141M by investors including Highland Europe, BlackFin, Serena, Cathay, Eurazeo and Battery.

descartesunderwriting.com

 

 

Contact details:

For more information, please reach out to the Descartes team at [email protected].

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