Commercial insurance underwriting platform Hyperexponential has been bought by Guidewire for $US1.7 billion ($2.44 billion).

The deal includes a further $US400 million ($574 million) based on revenue targets.

The London-based platform was founded in 2017 and its customers include Aviva, Allianz, Sompo, Beazley, Markel, HDI, Cincinnati Financial, Convex and Bowhead.

“It’s an honour to see the legacy continue with Guidewire,” said Hyperexponential co-founder Michael Johnson, who began his career as an actuarial analyst at Vero in Auckland.

“This milestone is a testament to the brilliance and perseverance of my co-founder Amrit Santhirasenan and everyone who contributed over the years.”

Guidewire says the acquisition sets it up to “define agentic underwriting, a new approach in which AI agents work alongside underwriters and actuaries to assess risk, price it and make decisions”.

The deal will “deliver industry-specific AI solutions that will transform commercial underwriting”, Guidewire CEO Mike Rosenbaum says.

“Together we will bring greater and more scalable intelligence to insurance decisions.”

Insurers will respond to more submissions, faster, with pricing and risk decisions that consistently reflect their best underwriting judgment, he says.

Mr Santhirasenan, who will continue with his team as part of Guidewire, said: “We’ll bring insight from submission to bind and from the individual risk to the entire portfolio.

“Insurers will be able to respond to submissions faster and, more importantly, improve loss ratios and allocate capital more effectively.

"Michael and I founded Hyperexponential with the conviction that underwriting ... deserved a technology platform to supercharge it.

“Although that began as a pricing and rating engine, our company, and products, have been supercharged by the arrival of agentic AI.”