Ominimo reaches a valuation of €1.4 billion two years post-launch.

      A development bank has recently created a unicorn, achieving this milestone in two years. Ominimo, a motor insurance startup based in Budapest and founded by Serbian and Hungarian entrepreneurs, has secured a Series B funding round led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's venture arm. This round totals €20.1 million, approximately $22.5 million, and values the company at €1.4 billion, according to EU-Startups. Ominimo confirmed the funding round, stating their valuation at $1.6 billion and labeling the EBRD as “an exceptionally founder-friendly and pragmatic investor.”

      The company was launched in 2024 and attained a billion-euro valuation more rapidly than any of the EBRD’s previous unicorns, such as PandaDoc, DocPlanner, and PicsArt, which took several years to achieve this status, according to Tech Funding News. Ominimo completed its Series A funding in 2025 with a valuation of €200 million, just a year after its launch, with Zurich Insurance joining as a distribution partner and minority stakeholder. This reflects a sevenfold revaluation in roughly a year, partly attributed to the increase in premiums.

      The annual gross written premium has surged from €26.3 million in 2024 to €157.8 million in 2025, and currently stands near €307 million, marking almost a twelvefold increase over two years, with nearly a million customers. The company has been profitable since its inception in Hungary, which is unusual for a rapidly scaling insurtech and noteworthy in its own right.

      However, Ominimo's valuation complexity lies in its operational model—it does not underwrite insurance. Instead, it functions as a managing general agent, assessing risk, selling policies, owning customer relationships, and managing claims, while the underwriting risk is carried by partner insurers. Its partners include Signal Iduna in Hungary and DA Direkt, Zurich’s German division, across Poland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. On its website, Ominimo refers to Signal Iduna as its sponsor.

      The company asserts its competitive advantage lies in pricing, claiming to utilize hundreds of data points for driver assessments, compared to the five or six typically employed by traditional insurers. This claim is supported by its workforce, with about two-thirds of its approximately 130 employees in data science or software, including eight Mathematics Olympiad medalists and one Physics Olympiad medalist. The staff count aims to increase to 150 by year-end.

      Founder and CEO Dusan Komar claims that Ominimo has gathered “the highest concentration of data science, software engineering, and insurance talent in Europe,” a statement that reflects typical self-promotion without external verification. Part of the newly acquired funds will be allocated to obtaining its own insurance license, allowing Ominimo to retain profits currently shared with its partner carriers and necessitating capital reserves against risk. Tech Funding News estimates that roughly 20 cents of regulatory capital is needed for each euro of premium underwritten. However, licenses are not a certainty; for instance, Wise was recently denied a US trust bank charter, while Revolut successfully obtained an Australian banking license at a valuation of $115 billion.

      The sector’s past experiences have been costly. Tech Funding News highlights wefox, once Europe's most highly funded insurtech at a $4.5 billion valuation, which is now downsizing and seeking emergency funding after expanding without adequate underwriting discipline. Ominimo positions itself as a corrective alternative, prioritizing profitability before expansion.

      Other companies are adopting different strategies. Alan raised €480 million from Prosus with a disciplined approach in health coverage, Sweden’s Lassie reached $100 million in Annual Recurring Revenue before its next funding round, and Corgi attained unicorn status by establishing a full-stack carrier from the start rather than renting one.

      Ominimo currently operates in Hungary, Poland, the Netherlands, and Sweden, with plans to launch in Belgium and Romania this summer, followed by expansions into Spain, Italy, and France. It aims to enter the United States market in 2027, while also planning to diversify its offerings beyond motor coverage, venturing into risks that its pricing model has yet to be tested against.

      The EBRD's involvement is notable in isolation, as its venture arm generally invests between €2 million and €30 million and focuses on economic development across Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, rather than purely supporting consumer fintech successes. The development lender's role in creating a billion-euro insurer in Budapest represents a distinctive outcome of this mandate.

      An important consideration is that Ominimo is valued at €1.4 billion based on its distribution capabilities and data science, not yet as an insurer since it does not currently assume insurance risk. Acquiring the insurance license will change this dynamic, transforming it from a capital-light intermediary to a business required to reserve for its own claims, marking the moment when its pricing model must meet real-world expectations