Sebastian Pitzer: Building InsurLab Germany

In this episode of Scouting For Growth, Sabine VdL talks to Sebastian Pitzler, former managing director of InsurLab Germany, a leading tech accelerator for startups wanting to enter the German market via Cologne. Before moving to the other side of the coin (i.e., becoming an InsurTech startup enabler), Sebastian worked for a very well-known Insurance company, Ergo, a subsidiary of Munich Re. He also has a background in IT strategy; he is a board member and a digital lab development expert. KEY TAKEAWAYS Within our industry, there has been a significant shift in the last 5-6 years. When I was responsible for the Ergo Lab in Berlin, it was hard to talk with the procurement department to secure a contract between a startup and an incumbent. The insurance industry approached it from an IT background focused on programming languages and self-developed software solutions. Then they began using standard software such as Microsoft and SAP, and finally, they were open to working with and collaborating with startups. It’s great to have seen the volume of InsurTech startups increase steadily over the past few years, and that’s because there are a couple of trends coming together: 1) The willingness and acceptance to support startups and corporate management attention that investments are necessary to build and grow these startup ecosystems. 2) The ability to see that startups are able to help and find solutions to major problems in a very short time period, which is something we realised in Germany during the Covid-19 pandemic. We have been able to create many win-win situations and success stories, demonstrating that a startup solution can help overcome, for example, the bottleneck in internal IT capacity. Networking the Insurance Industry is what our InsurLab Germany is about: building a strong, reliable network for all parties, including enthusiasts who want to work on innovation and digitalization. From the beginning, the design of the initiative was that we needed to bring together insurance companies on board as well as startups, IT providers, consultancy companies, and universities, all with different competencies to work on issues and topics like innovation and digitalisation. By setting up the InsureNXT Conference, our goal was clear. We wanted to ensure that the focus was not only on insurance, startups, and tech companies. We also wanted to include the cross-industry and science dimensions because it’s logical that, if you want to develop insurance innovation and digitalization in an ecosystem economy, you need to involve different parties. It’s great to see cross-industry partners joining companies like Garmin, Volvo, and Lufthansa Systems, all collaborating with our startups! BEST MOMENTS ‘I’m not the classical insurance guy, I’m more of a tech enthusiast.’ ‘During the past six months, we have supported 15 startups to develop and grow. We’ve supported them with over 60 mentors from our insurance and expert networks. Those connections helped develop over 40 projects. And some are already up and running as products on the market.’ ‘Corporations want to innovate but avoid risks, and the startups want to grow quickly, but sometimes they speak different languages, and we need to be a translator or build bridges between both those worlds to understand the different needs and perspectives.’ ‘Digitalisation is about more than technology, it’s about mind shift, agility, customer centricity on a new level. That’s why it was so important, from scratch, to build InsurLab Germany as a network of different parties and drivers besides the member network that we have created and our partner network.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Sebastian Pitzler was the Managing Director of InsurLab Germany. He started in March 2018. Previously, he was head of the ERGO Digital Lab in Berlin and was responsible for setting up and expanding this innovation laboratory in the Berlin start-up scene. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet. If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights. And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]