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Diesta's bid to unclog commercial insurance payments (Megabuyte article)
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5 min read
Orchestrating insurance payment flows
Diesta provides a platform that automates premium reconciliation and distribution for the commercial insurance market, with a particular focus on intermediated distribution channels such as MGAs, brokers, and Lloyd's market participants. Diesta acts as the orchestration layer between a PAS and the underlying banking and payment infrastructure, bridging the gap between knowing who to pay and executing it across complex, multi-entity distribution chains. Its suite has three modules:
Receivables, which spans reconciliation, credit control, broker statement generation, instalment management, and multi currency FX)
Subledger, which provides full trial balance functionality with push integrations into platforms such as NetSuite, Oracle and Sage
Payouts, which handles the scheduling and execution of outgoing payments(commissions, reinsurance premiums, insurer charges etc.) with multi factor authentication and routing controls
Diesta was founded in 2022 by Julian Schoemig (CEO) and Christopher Davis (CTO) and is headquartered in London with 25 staff. It was born out of the Lloyd's Lab accelerator and subsequently closed a $3.8m seed round in October 2024, led by FinTech Collective with participation from Commerce Ventures and existing investors.
Mapping the problem from first principle
Founders Schoemig and Davis identified that the financial operations layer of commercial insurance, particularly in intermediated distribution, was structurally underserved. While PAS systems had modernised significantly, the movement and reconciliation of money between participants remained largely manual, reliant on spreadsheets and offline processes that incumbent systems had not meaningfully addressed.
In the early stages, the team built an internal data model and worked directly with prospective clients to map their financial data, using the output to demonstrate the value proposition ahead of a fully built product. Going granular with each prospect and showing what standardised, automated financial operations could look like for their specific flows shaped Diesta's architecture, built to accommodate different financial models and payment flows without requiring bespoke development for each client.
Today, clients push data towards Diesta's own API, which encapsulates more of the reconciliation, sub-ledger, and payout logic that organisations had previously handled in spreadsheets or manual processes.
Owning the financial operations layer
Diesta’s progress was validated with its $3.8m seed round in 2024, enabling the group to scale its platform and build out its go-to-market. Its focus is deliberately narrow, targeting intermediated commercial and speciality lines (MGAs, brokers and Lloyd's market participants) where the flow of funds between multiple parties is complex, and the financial responsibility attached to holding client or fiduciary money is significant.
Leading its post-raise growth strategy is product development. The core platform was built around covering the entire financial operation of an insurance participant, progressing from receivables and reconciliation through to sub-ledger and payout capabilities. The next phase is the Diesta Network, a fourth module due to launch later in 2026, which will enable multiple entities sharing a payment journey to connect on a standardised basis. With around 3,000 organisations already connected across 25 clients, the Network aims to commercialise that connectivity by enabling large insurers to push standardised payment flows through their intermediaries.
Embedding AI for fast Revenue Growth
AI has also been embedded progressively across all three modules, including for reconciliation matching, document standardisation, and payout optimisation, though its greatest potential lies in the Diesta Network, where the volume of data generated across thousands of connected organisations opens the door to more intelligent communication and workflow automation between participants (e.g. interrogating payment status via a conversational interface).
Technical partnerships have also been central to Diesta's strategy, with a growing PAS partner channel (including Verisk, Instanda and Concirrus) creating a pull dynamic that complements its direct sales efforts to scale its go-to-market.
Diesta is on a high growth trajectory and, while it doesn’t file full accounts, we understand revenues are in the mid single-digit millions, split broadly evenly across its MGA, insurer, and broker client segments. Its expansion is being fuelled by losses as it prioritises investment in product and go-to-market.
That investment is set to continue, with Diesta planning to raise a further round later in2026 to fund the next stage of its growth, most notably the commercial launch of the Diesta Network and further scale its go-to-market capabilities.
Megabuyte view
Diesta appears to occupy a narrow but genuine gap in the insurance technology landscape. While sub-ledger capabilities exist within larger platforms such as Guidewire and Verisk, and standalone reconciliation tools like AutoRek address parts of the problem, none match Diesta's integration depth across PAS, banks, trust accounts, and payment service providers – a differentiation that supports its commercial traction. The upcoming Diesta Network adds a further dimension to that proposition, along with a greater AI opportunity.
However, its expansion doesn’t come without challenges. Convincing insurance firms that payment flows warrant dedicated investment is not straightforward, and doing so as an early-stage business with limited brand recognition makes that task harder still.Overcoming that resistance is as much an education challenge as a commercial one – but for those that make the switch, the rewards are tangible through faster settlement and greater liquidity.
