Atlian raises pre-seed to tackle UK construction cover

Atlian has raised a pre-seed funding round led by Fuel Ventures as it targets the UK construction insurance market with an AI-based project discovery tool.

The round also included SyndicateRoom's Access EIS, GI Network and angel investors including Chris Mairs CBE. Atlian did not disclose the size of the investment.

The company was founded by James Buckley-Thorp, a serial entrepreneur whose previous ventures include retail brand Rupert and Buckley and life insurance app Bequest. He was also an early team member at insurtech unicorn Zego.

Atlian is focused on a part of the insurance market that still relies heavily on manual processes. Construction cover in Britain is often arranged through phone calls, emails and PDF documents, and brokers can miss out on business because they hear about projects only after competitors have already quoted.

Its software is designed to identify construction projects at the planning stage and put that information in front of brokers earlier in the process. The aim is to cut the time brokers spend searching for opportunities and preparing submissions.

Atlian said more than 728,000 projects are live across Britain at any one time. It argues that, despite UK construction activity being worth about £200 billion a year, insurance distribution has not kept pace with modern data tools.

The funding will support Atlian's commercial launch, expand its construction data, and fund the recruitment of its first senior sales hire from the broker market. Its first brokers are due to come on board in November.

Alongside its core platform, Atlian has launched a free broker tool called WhoWritesThis.co.uk, which has handled nearly 1,000 searches in its first weeks on the market, according to the company.

Founder returns

Buckley-Thorp has re-emerged with the new venture after a year out of the public eye. In earlier roles, he built Rupert and Buckley from a small start-up into a multimillion-pound retail business before selling it, and later founded Bequest with backing from Aviva.

He linked his latest move to the scale of the problem in construction insurance.

"I went quiet for a year because I was looking for a problem big enough to spend the next decade on. Construction is it. Britain builds £200bn a year and still insures it like it's 1995. AI has come for lawyers and bankers. The building site is next, and Atlian will see every building in Britain before it exists," said James Buckley-Thorp, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Atlian.

Investor support

The deal marks GI Network's first investment, a newly formed UKBAA-accredited angel syndicate backed by a professional investor community of 3,000 members.

Mark James, syndicate lead at GI Network, explained why the group chose Atlian for its debut transaction.

"We wanted our first investment to show exactly what our members can back: a founder who has done it before, going after a huge market that technology has barely touched. Atlian is that company," said Mark James, syndicate lead at GI Network.

Fuel Ventures said Buckley-Thorp's track record was a key factor in its decision to lead the round. The firm has been active in UK early-stage technology investing since 2014 and has backed more than 230 companies.

"We're thrilled to lead Atlian's pre-seed round and back James. Having built multiple successful tech businesses and raised over £17m across his career, he is uniquely positioned to take on the massive opportunity in construction insurance. Britain builds £200bn a year and it's an industry ripe for AI-driven transformation. Atlian is building the critical software layer that will power this market, and we're excited to support them on this journey," said Mark Pearson, Founder and Managing Partner at Fuel Ventures.

For Atlian, the immediate test will be whether brokers adopt a new workflow in a market that has long depended on relationships, manual submissions and late visibility of projects.

WhoWritesThis.co.uk has already handled nearly 1,000 searches since launching this month, according to the company.