Insurtech Startup WechselGott Faces Insolvency, Provisional Administrator Seeks Restructuring and Investments

(openPR) Munich, May 26, 2023

Insurance/Fintech:
provisional insolvency administrator wants to save “change god”.

• Munich district court orders provisional insolvency proceedings and appoints lawyer Rolf Pohlmann as provisional insolvency administrator
• Search for investors started with the aim of maintaining business operations
• Overdue wages and salaries of employees are to be pre-financed through the insolvency money

The contract change service GmbH, which the insurance manager “change god” (www.wechselgott.com) operates, is in financial difficulties. The startup, founded in Leipzig in 2018, offers an automatic switching service for insurance and energy contracts for both end customers and partners such as banks and insurance brokers. In contrast to other comparison portals, the WechselGott software accesses the transaction data from the online banking of the customer concerned. The WechselGott platform fully automatically recognizes existing insurance policies and contracts in order to then use this data to determine the contractual basis using complex algorithms and to offer better conditions with other contractual partners. WechselGott also takes over the contract change. On the platform, customers can adjust their contracts, take out new insurance and get advice. BillGod earns commissions. The business model could still be scaled, for example with regard to mobile phone or Internet providers or to find the cheapest fitness studio.

Contract change service GmbH has now filed for insolvency. The available funds are no longer sufficient to pay the wages and salaries of the 30 employees, which are due at the end of May. The shareholders were no longer willing to inject further funds. The Munich district court, which is responsible for the Leipzig company because the center of business activities is now in Munich, appointed lawyer Rolf Pohlmann as provisional insolvency administrator (decision of May 16, 2023, Gz. 1500 IN 1359/23). Together with his team, he now wants to examine the prospects for restructuring. “Since the start-up was founded, the shareholders have invested around eight million euros in Wechselgott, primarily in the development of the software, which is currently being fully maintained and further developed,” says Pohlmann. In this respect, he wants to explore the extent to which the software is of interest to other investors or competitors. After the company was valued at EUR 28 million in mid-2021 and the current crisis is mainly due to external reasons, he sees “good chances for restructuring”.

The reason for filing for insolvency is, on the one hand, the energy crisis. This made the most important business of WechselGott to niece. It was no longer possible to broker cheaper energy supply tariffs because in times of rapidly increasing electricity and gas prices no provider wanted to undercut the other and the prices were too volatile. Wechselgott’s business concept began to falter and the schedule for realizing profits could no longer be met. Most recently, the changed interest rate landscape became a problem for WechselGott: “The restructuring of startups is currently generally difficult,” confirms Pohlmann. Investors would have more alternative investment opportunities available again, so that investments in start-ups would have lost their attractiveness. The provisional insolvency administrator still sees opportunities for WechselGott. The prerequisite is that the employees, including programmers and software developers, can be kept on board. So that they continue to receive their salaries, Pohlmann wants to pre-finance their salaries with the insolvency money. He has already submitted the necessary application to the employment agency for this purpose.