Founded by Sabine VanderLinden, Alchemy Crew is a platform that enables disruptive leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs to industralise, commercialise, and de-risk corporate venturing. With unrivalled experience in the insurance industry, the business aims to bridge the adoption gap between corporations and growth ventures using open innovation, design thinking techniques and digital ecosystems. Recognised in this year’s Most Influential CEO Awards, Sabine VanderLinden is a thought leader on a mission to revolutionise the industry through her work at Alchemy Crew Ventures.
Alchemy Crew acts as an architect, a translator and an educator to esteemed leaders and growth ventures, empowering them to unlock the full potential of open innovation and digital systems. The innovative business validates and de-risks corporate venturing activities and employs structured commercialisation frameworks to help corporations embrace state-of-the-art technologies from growth ventures. Alchemy Crew leverages its extensive global network of tech ventures, data, and AI experts to solve complex problems and turn emerging threats (cybersecurity, AI risks, environmental risks etc.) into opportunities for growth.
In the insurance and financial industries, new risks are appearing every day, resulting in significant damage to organisations. Alchemy Crew has developed Virtual Adoption Labs to provide vital expertise, assessing how these risks will affect clients’ operations and the future of their work. By implementing effective business models, Alchemy Crew can help clients to grow and scale their ventures to add measurable value to their business.
Sabine VanderLinden, CEO and Venture Partner, says, “We believe in the power of collaboration and building strong, mutually beneficial partnerships. We foster open communication, trust, and transparency in our interactions with corporate clients, startups, investors, and other stakeholders. We take full accountability for delivering on our commitments. Growth and impact are the direct results of our efforts, and we own the end-to-end process of achieving the desired outcomes for our clients and partners.”
Alchemy Crew emphasises responsible innovation and delivers solutions that address multiple current day challenges from cybersecurity and generative AI to climate change and environmental, societal, and public health risks. With its Sustainable Corporate Adoption Labs, the business helps organisations establish and foster an ecosystem-led transition to new digital operating setting or operating models that support emerging technologies. By combining the right data, AI algorithms, and APIs, companies can establish reliable digital operating environments that pave the way for sustainable long-term growth.
With over 25 years of insurance experience and gradually acquired skills in corporate innovation, venture capital, and academia, Sabine VanderLinden leverages her expertise to develop digitalisation-led growth strategies for the insurance industry. She helps seasoned players and emerging startups as well as more established players navigate digital transformation and detect new opportunities. In 2014/2015, VanderLinden was one of the few first to identify InsurTech as a growth market after discovering how financial technology innovation could shape the future of FinTech. In her multifaceted role, VanderLinden evaluates, sources, and eases engagement with promising growth ventures on a global scale. She has accelerated over 150+ ventures and facilitated numerous pilot projects between startups and financial institutions.
After completing her MBA, Sabine VanderLinden joined IBM UK in 2000, where she focused on identifying and recommending technology to overcome large organisations’ efficiencies and value creation challenges. VanderLinden then became the CEO and Managing Director of Startupbootcamp InsurTech in Europe and in Hartford Connecticut, a leading accelerator passionate about insurance innovation. In this position, she worked with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerated over 100 startup ventures.
As a thought leader, ecosystem builder, and tech ambassador, she authored and co-edited ‘The INSURTECH Book’ where she shares knowledge and best practices on insurance technology alongside other well-known experts. Building on her impressive experience, VanderLinden became the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, where she continues to guide her team in building white label and bespoke Tech accelerators and scaleup programs while activating and amplifying each programme’s brand awareness.
Sabine VanderLinden says, “At Alchemy Crew, we foster a culture of transparency, ownership, accountability, collaboration, and inclusivity. We believe that diverse teams perform better when collaborating together, and we are committed to making Alchemy Crew an equitable and inclusive place to work. I play an active role in maintaining this culture by leading by example and ensuring that our values are reflected in all aspects of our work. By maintaining an enjoyable and driven working environment while supporting our staff’s wellbeing, we position ourselves to deliver exceptional results for our clients and drive positive change in our industry.”
Since the pandemic, digitalisation has rapidly evolved in all business ecosystems including the insurance industry. As an Insurance and Technology Leader, Sabine VanderLinden quickly identified the need for a venture commercialisation lab to support insurers with their digital challenges. Alchemy Crew utilises new technologies, such as cloud, IoT, AI, and Generative AI, to provide clients with significant opportunities to monitor and price risks more efficiently. Leveraging her many years of expertise, VanderLinden creates digital environments that facilitate collaboration and partnership agreements between insurers and startups, advancing the adoption of innovative solutions.
The acceleration of digitalisation has opened the door to risks as more people transition to remote working and AI becomes more widely used. Alchemy Crew works with insurers to help them develop solutions to address new and changing emerging risks, turning threats into opportunities. The business is committed to helping established players and emerging tech businesses navigate the challenges of the digital age, form mutually beneficial partnerships, and implement best practices into their operations.
Additionally, Sabine VanderLinden is passionate about nurturing new female talent and the next generation of diverse InsurTech leaders. She says, “Through initiatives like the Startupbootcamp InsurTech accelerator, I have had the privilege of supporting and accelerating the growth of over 100 startup ventures, 20% of these were female founded startups. I continue on that path. We have scouted over 55,000 over the past years and accelerated another 50 growth ventures over the past four years. And seeing these founders succeed and drive innovation in the industry has been immensely rewarding.”
Looking to the future, Alchemy Crew has plans to enhance its acceleration as a service model to help existing players build more effective startups and scaleup adoption programs. Each program is tailored to suit the local market, the partners involved with the programme, and the companies’ stage of maturity. Alchemy Crew also intends to move much of its assets online. The advancement of edtech enables the business to share expertise acquired through 25 years in the industry and 10 years developing corporate-startup growth programs.
Moving forward, Sabine VanderLinden will continue to focus on facilitating communication through digital ecosystems and helping clients overcome their digital transformation challenges leveraging corporate venturing techniques. Alchemy Crew currently works with businesses across Asia, Europe, and the USA but has plans to expand its footprint to new markets and drive innovation on a global scale. As a thought leader, VanderLinden understands the importance of remaining at the forefront of emerging technologies and will invest further in areas like AI, Big Data, IoT, Cloud, and Quantum to explore how these technologies can create value for insurers.
Furthermore, VanderLinden will continue to build on Alchemy Crew’s success by supporting new partners that reach out from institutional venture funds and corporate venture funds focused on specific themes or geographies. Within any ecosystem-led environment, these funds are vital to support the most promising startups with innovation in essential areas such as climate risk, cyber insurance, and health tech. “All those are critical to make it more affordable to address the current protection gap.”
As the business continues to grow, Sabine VanderLinden is dedicated to inspiring the next generation of diverse leaders in Alchemy Crew and the wider Insurance Technology sector. She is passionate about being a voice for the industry, acting as a tech ambassador for BigTech, medium tech and small tech to facilitate collaboration between large incumbent corporations and growth ventures. Spearheaded by VanderLinden, Alchemy Crew strives to raise awareness and educate clients on how best to use emerging technologies to add value to their businesses. For her transformation-driven thought leadership, we have bestowed on Sabine VanderLinden this year’s award for Most Influential CEO – Central London (Insurance Corporate Ventures). We cannot wait to see what the future holds for VanderLinden and Alchemy Crew on its mission to inspire technological innovation in the insurance industry.
For business enquiries, contact Sabine VanderLinden from Alchemy Crew on their website – https://alchemycrew.com/
Work is in the City of London near Lloyds on London which is where insurers are located.
