Former unicorn team to launch German startup Afori with €4 million to bring AI-powered efficiency to insurance brokers

Afori, a new AI platform purpose-built for insurance brokers out of Berlin, today announced its official launch out of stealth alongside the closing of a €4 million pre-Seed funding round.

The round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Yellow, Booom, insurance industry leaders including Christopher Lohmann (Founder the Mulberry Ventures, ex-CEO HDI and Gothaer), Chris Leifeld (Founder Thinksurance) and Garrett Koehn (CIO CRC), and recognised AI pioneers Mustafa Suleyman (CEO, Microsoft AI), Alex Rinke (Founder & Co-CEO Celonis) and Mehdi Ghissassi (ex-Google DeepMind).

“Insurance brokers still spend the majority of their day tied up in administrative work, a burden that is only growing heavier with increasing regulation,” said Fabian Wesemann, Co-Founder and CEO of Afori. “At Afori, we’ve worked hand-in-hand with brokers to design a solution that speaks their language, understands their processes, and gives them back the most valuable resource of all: time to advise their clients.”

Afori’s pre-Seed round situates the company within a broader wave of European InsurTech and AI-driven automation funding in 2025. Several startups have attracted investor attention for applying AI to insurance workflows – from claims processing to broker enablement. London’s ClaimSorted raised yesterday €11.4 million to modernise claims handling, while Paris-based Seyna secured €10 million to expand its broker-dedicated platform. Fellow French startup Orus closed €25 million to grow its SME-focused insurance services, while Denmark’s Leaf raised €1.7 million for AI-powered business insurance and pension advice.

Similarly, Berlin’s muffintech secured €3.5 million to build AI tools for insurers and brokers, a particularly relevant parallel given Afori’s broker-centric approach.

Together, these examples indicate a steady capital flow into specialised, AI-enabled insurance platforms across Europe. Afori’s focus on brokerage-specific automation aligns with this trend, positioning it as part of a broader movement to streamline back-office functions and enhance productivity within regulated financial services.

“Unlike generic productivity tools, Afori’s AI is trained on real broker use cases and insurance-specific terminology,” added Sergi Banos, Co-founder and CTO of Afori. “By combining Agentic AI with deep industry expertise, we’re creating a product that integrates seamlessly into brokers’ daily workflows and delivers real, tangible value from the very first day.”

Founded in 2025, Afori is tackling one of the biggest pain points in the brokerage industry: the overwhelming administrative workload. Brokers spend more than 60% of their time on back-office tasks, leaving little room for strong client relationships and business growth.

Afori’s first product, the intelligent AI sidebar for brokers, addresses this challenge head-on by automatically transforming emails and documents into cases with structured tasks, and delegating to the insurance specific AI agents partial automations directly within the inbox of a broker, saving brokers using the product on average one hour per day.

Co-founders Fabian Wesemann and Sergi Banos bring deep insurance expertise, previously having Founded and been first employee & CTO at InsurTech unicorn wefox.

“We believe the leading services firms of the future will be those that embrace AI to rethink how they work and drive better outcomes for their clients,” said Zeynep Yavuz, Partner at General Catalyst “We are backing a team with domain expertise, deep understanding of insurance brokers’ pain points, and the vision to lead AI transformation in insurance services.”

The €4 million pre-seed funding will be used to accelerate product development, expand integrations, and drive market adoption in Germany. Afori will debut its platform at DKM 2025 this month in Dortmund, Germany.

Afori will debut its platform at DKM 2025 (October 28–29, Dortmund, Germany). Visitors will have the opportunity to experience the AI assistant live and speak directly with the founding team.

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