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Envelop Risk is proud to have been named in The Sunday Times 100 Tech 2026, recognising the UK’s fastest growing technology firms.
The annual Sunday Times 100 Tech comprises UK tech companies that have had exceptional growth over the past 3 years and have built proprietary technology that contributes in an impactful way to both their industry and the wider tech sector in the UK.
Envelop Risk’s ability to build proprietary underwriting technology that enables insurers to navigate complex and emerging risks is what stood out. The successful use of augmented underwriting, combining machine learning techniques, AI capabilities and human expertise, demonstrated a commitment to innovation in tech that has made a meaningful contribution to the reinsurance industry, the cyber risk sector and the wider economy.
The Times’ Chris Marshall also interviewed Jonathan Spry, Envelop Risk’s CEO & co-founder, to discuss in more detail the dynamic, elevated and evolving threat cyber risks pose.
Excerpts from Chris Marshall’s feature article below. To read the article in full, click here.
The team modelling the next big cyber-shock
Envelop Risk develops worst-case scenarios involving hacking, cyberattacks or major software failures to underwrite cyber-risk for insurers and reinsurers
In an unassuming office block in the centre of Bristol, a team of data scientists, cyber-security experts and former spooks sketch out worst-case cyber-doom scenarios: catastrophic attacks, widespread cyber-warfare and crippling software failures. They build extreme what-if scenarios to understand how a truly catastrophic cyber-event could unfold and how companies would cope — crucial information that is then fed into insurance underwriting.
The heart of Envelop Risk’s prediction machine are its AI models. These are fed intelligence on the risks of cyberattacks — some of it surprisingly easily accessible on the dark web — alongside data from thousands of other public and private sources, including past attacks and known vulnerabilities. They then predict the risks of cyberattacks, which Jonathan Spry, Envelop’s Founder & CEO, considers to be the “primary existential risk companies face”.
“We’ve been set up in response to a view that you can use data science, data analytics and particularly AI to understand real-world risks,” Spry says. “What we’re really doing is sourcing intelligence, which allows us to work out the trends and scalability of the attack.”
While Envelop Risk does not know exactly which company will next fall victim to a devastating cyber-attack, it is confident its machine learning and AI models can predict overall cyber-risk with enough accuracy to forecast the financial fallout.
Using this process, which it calls “augmented underwriting”, Envelop Risk assesses and takes on cyber-risk for insurers and reinsurers. It also invests some of its own capital, alongside third-party investors, in the insurance portfolios it underwrites.
Given Envelop Risk’s early links to quantum computing, Spry and team are acutely aware that the potentially transformative technology could soon take cyber-crime to new levels: quantum computers are expected to become powerful enough to break the encryption algorithms that currently protect data.
Envelop Risk is also bringing its deep analytical power to bear on another complicated challenge: the risks posed by AI and the potentially enormous insurance claims that could emerge from the misuse of the technology. The massive uptake of chatbots and AI agents, which can hallucinate or make things up, risks costly mistakes for businesses around the world.
Reports suggest that some major US insurance firms are already seeking to exclude AI risks from corporate policies.
“It is legitimate to ask questions about the risk and the cost of AI, and we need to be able to manage those costs and risks,” Spry says.
Spry co-founded Envelop Risk in 2016 alongside senior adviser Paul Guthrie, 47. The company was formed around the AI business of QxBranch, a US quantum computing and data analytics software startup that Guthrie founded. The rest of QxBranch was then acquired by Rigetti, a Nasdaq-listed quantum computing firm.
Since launch, Envelop Risk has raised about $200 million from investors including Japan’s Softbank. Envelop Risk has offices in London and Bermuda but its headquarters is in Bristol, where Spry says it takes advantage of a “deep talent pool in data science and AI”. Revenues reached £34.6 million in 2024.
Read Chris Marshall’s piece from The Times in full here
Explore the full directory of companies in this year’s Sunday Times 100 Tech here.
