News

InterResolve secures funding from Balderton Capital to drive alternative personal injury scheme growth

London, 15 April, 2010 – InterResolve, the independent injury claims specialist, has today announced that it has secured a major funding deal with Balderton Capital, one of Europe’s largest venture capital firms. The company will use the funding to expand its alternative service involving the acquisition, processing and settling of personal injury claims directly between claimants and insurance companies.
This equity investment from Balderton will allow InterResolve to significantly grow the scale and scope of its injury claims activities and enable InterResolve to build a substantial war chest of around £30m for claims acquisition.
Using InterResolve, injury claimants no longer need to go straight to lawyers, incurring the usual costs and delays that involves. Where claims are straightforward and likely to be admitted, InterResolve can take claimants straight to the 3rd party insurer, thereby cutting costs and delays in getting early care and compensation for them. The company acquires claims of legitimate motor accident claimants before they are sold off to lawyers and arranges free independent legal and medical advice and private medical care. InterResolve has unique arrangements that mean it can make direct contact with the insurer of the party at fault and the process can cut the legal costs for insurers dramatically.
Tim Bunting, Partner at Balderton Capital, will also join the board of InterResolve.
Peter Ashdown-Barr, Chief Executive of InterResolve, said: “Costs and delays, particularly in small injury claims, continue to challenge insurers and claimants despite the forthcoming MoJ rule changes. As InterResolve is not a law firm, we can work with both sides outside the usual legal process and deliver significantly greater savings for insurers while ensuring claimants get independent advice.

“This investment will mean these benefits can now be offered on a much wider basis to the market. The timing of this investment could not be more relevant and we are delighted to welcome Tim Bunting on to the InterResolve board.”

Tim Bunting, Partner at Balderton Capital, said: “InterResolve has demonstrated that it has a viable alternative to the current personal injury claims process. The volume of claims and response from insurers shows a robust solution is required to achieve real change. We believe that InterResolve has the structure and ability to deliver that across the market and we have every confidence in Peter’s ability to build the business further.”

InterResolve and Enterprise Rent-A-Car last year announced an exclusive agreement to jointly sell and market their respective Injury and Direct Hire schemes. Where used together, these schemes provide a comprehensive alternative to the conventional legal and credit hire processes and compound the benefits to reduce costs even further.

Mike Nigro, Managing Director of Enterprise Rent-A-Car said: “Business partners like InterResolve are critical to the success of our Direct Hire programme. Through close collaboration and a mutual understanding of one another’s businesses, we’re able to really cut the cost of claims management and resolution, whilst delivering a highly customer focussed experience. The new funding arrangement highlights the value placed on identifying alternatives to some existing claims processes, and we look forward to continuing this relationship.”

Cavendish Corporate Finance advised the InterResolve team on the equity investment by Balderton.

Simon Ramery, partner at Cavendish Corporate Finance, said: “We are very pleased to have assisted such an exciting business as InterResolve in securing the necessary funding to accelerate its growth.  This deal demonstrates that significant capital is available from investors such as Balderton when a business has a compelling value creation story.”


For further information contact:
For InterResolve
Concise Public Relations
Ian Barrett
Tel: 020 7100 3960 or 07949 422257
ian@concisepr.com
For Balderton Capital
Powerscourt
Kay Larsen
Tel: 020 7250 1446 or 07912 516246
kay.larsen@powerscourtmedia.com

About InterResolve
InterResolve was set up in 2004 as a claims mediation company. It has become the UK's only independent injury claims specialist acquiring, processing and settling claims directly between claimants and third party insurers. InterResolve works with legitimate claimants to help them get earlier care and compensation, while substantially reducing claims transaction costs for insurers.
Claimants get access to completely independent legal advice and independent evaluation of compensation as well as early resolution of all claims issues. They also get early access to free private medical care and treatment.
Insurers can use the company’s high-volume online injury claims platform for inter-party claims processing together with agreed timetables and scales of legal and other costs that provide much greater efficiencies and cost savings than the conventional legal process.
Because InterResolve is providing an assistance programme to claimants-in-person, even though independent legal advice is available, the service is outside the existing pre-action protocol and the proposed new MoJ process. This means InterResolve is free to contract privately with both claimants and insurers and agree independent processes and cost structures. In this way InterResolve can meet the dual requirements of ensuring claimants always have access to independent advice and that insurers benefit from significant cost savings. Where claims are disputed or more complex, claimants are represented by a panel of specialist law firms under the scheme.
InterResolve has already proven its model through a number of successful pilot and full schemes involving thousands of claims over the last few years. It has also developed its own highly advanced online inter-party technology platform and has a scalable structure of FNOL, call centre and business processing operations.

InterResolve is regulated by the Ministry of Justice in respect of regulated claims management activities (registration number CRM: 1457, recorded on www.claimsregulation.gov.uk). InterResolve is an executive board member of the Claims Standards Council, and is accredited by the UK Civil Mediation Council.

For more information, visit: www.inter-resolve.com.


About Balderton Capital

Balderton Capital is one of the largest venture capital firms in Europe, committed to finding and helping talented entrepreneurs build great companies. Based in London, it manages $1.9bn committed venture capital.
 
Since 2000, Balderton has invested in over 80 companies, principally in numerous European countries but also in the US and Asia. Balderton’s investments span a wide variety of sectors including communications, consumer services, enterprise software and services, e-commerce, mobile, semiconductors, media and financial services.

Balderton invests in innovative businesses and approaches investment using the principles of teamwork and an intense dedication to building companies of lasting value. The investment partners combine international and Silicon Valley operational experience with company-building expertise.

Notable investments include Bebo (sold to AOL for $850m), Betfair (the online betting exchange), ScanSafe (sold to Cisco Systems for $183m), LOVEFiLM (the home entertainment subscription service) and MySQL (sold to Sun for $1bn).

For more information, visit: www.balderton.com.


About Enterprise Rent-A-Car
 
In the UK, Enterprise Rent-A-Car is the sole specialist in providing replacement vehicles and courtesy cars, which are relied upon in the event of an accident.  Enterprise also offers daily and weekend rental for private or business use.
 
Founded in 1957, Enterprise is headquartered in St. Louis and has more than 7,000 offices in the UK, Germany, Ireland, the United States and Canada. Enterprise, which started in the UK in 1994, has rapidly expanded and currently has over 340 locations across the UK, with more than 3,000 staff.  Three quarters of the UK population are within five miles of an Enterprise location. 

For more information, visit www.enterprise.co.uk.