You can usually get a pretty good feel for a business within minutes of walking through its office doors and insurtech firm Ripe is no different.
The specialist digital insurance provider recently moved into One Stockport Exchange, just a stone’s throw from Stockport station, and now counts musicMagpie and Stagecoach Group as its neighbours in the floors below.
Inside the new offices, there are floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Stockport’s skyline while around 20 meeting rooms are draped with the names of towns and cities chosen by staff, ranging from Sheffield to Kingston.
It’s a small touch, but one that says a lot about the culture at the business.
Marketing director Sarah Jones, for example, tells me after meeting me at the entrance that she’s now spent 11 happy years at the business, watching its growth story unfold from the inside.
And that growth has undeniably accelerated in recent years. Ripe’s latest financial figures in 2025 showed turnover climbed to £20.6m in 2024, up from £17.8m in 2023, while the office move means the business now has a new base to house its 130 staff, with room for 150.
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For CEO Alan Thomas, who joined the company in 2024 after previously serving as UK CEO at Simply Business, the move is about more than just extra space. It’s a big vote of confidence not just in Stockport, but for where the business is heading next.
“We needed more room, so we started looking around,” he tells me as we settle into a boardroom overlooking the town after a quick tour of the office.
“We got a bit lucky because this space became available as a sublet from Stagecoach – they weren’t using this floor. It was actually the first building developed at Stockport Exchange, and it just happened to come up at the right time for us.
“The transport connections here are incredible and fingers crossed trams come to Stockport as that’s another game-changer. The amount of money they’re putting into regeneration makes this perfect for us.
“I’m a little bit biased obviously because of where we are, but this is genuinely the second hub outside of London in the UK. Other cities might argue differently, but I’m convinced that that’s true. The talent up here is really strong too, there is a lot going on. It’s really vibrant.”
The business, founded in 1998 by John Woosey from his bedroom, seems to have carved out a very specific corner of the insurance market over the past two decades.
Ripe focuses on niche products designed around people’s hobbies, passions and specialist businesses, whether that’s golfers, cyclists, Pilates instructors, sailors or even campervan enthusiasts. It has a “unique” setup, from its 30-strong marketing team to an in-house tech team.
“We’ve stayed niche, or a specialist, however you want to call it. That’s deliberate,” he explains.
“It means the customers are more interested than they might otherwise be, but also you’re not going toe to toe with the really big direct consumer insurers.”
‘I’m sat in the optimistic camp about AI’
That specialist approach is backed by Ripe’s in-house cloud-based technology platform, ‘Juice’, which the company developed and invested heavily in during 2020 to speed up launching and managing products.
“The critical bit for me, as we go into the new world, is all of that data sits in one place. All of our customers and products are now migrated over to the same ‘Juice’ platform and our teams use the technology.
“If our customers have a passion, a hobby, or something they really care about that they need to insure, we will basically make it easy to find, easy to use and great value.
“Whilst they are all very different, ensuring a 30 ft yacht is really quite different to ensuring a Pilates instructor for their liability, but we’ve got it all sat on one platform.”
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The platform is also central to how Ripe is thinking about AI.
More recently, the company has developed and launched a ChatGPT app in-house for its Cycleplan product, allowing customers to receive instant insurance quotes through conversational AI and then be able to go directly to payment.
For Thomas, although he describes himself as somewhat optimistic about AI, he says the pace of change both a “huge opportunity” and daunting.
“It’s hugely exciting how much more we can do but it’s also somewhat daunting to think we need to try and have a plan – but a plan that can react and be changed really quickly because it [AI] is moving so quickly,” he says.
“Skills required in all businesses will change over time again. It’s just how quickly and in which areas. One of our values is stay curious so we’re well positioned to adapt. But roles will change over time.
“I spend a lot of time thinking, sometimes worried about that sort of stuff, and what does it really mean for all of us. But at the moment, I’m sat in the optimist camp that it will just create the ability to do a lot more.”
And the firm’s combination of technology, branding, marketing and specialist knowledge is what Thomas believes gives Ripe an edge over its competitors.
“The single biggest reason that we’ve managed to do the growth we’ve done is joining up those things – we know how to use the tech and data, we’ve got some great people across the business, and then you layer on that with really good marketing and branding – not many other businesses have got that going.”
M&A growth plans and the future
Ripe is now pairing that organic growth with an increasingly active acquisition strategy.
The business completed its third major acquisition in November 2025 with the purchase of holiday homes insurance specialist Schofields. That followed the acquisitions of Manchester-based boat insurance specialist GJW Direct and specialist insurer Craftinsure in 2023.
“We’re very strong at doing data, technology and marketing, especially in digital channels, and that wasn’t the heritage of Craftinsure, for instance,” says Thomas.
“So we’ve been able to bring some of our skills in and make the proposition a bit better for customers.”
Now, Ripe is actively eyeing more deals.
“We like buying businesses where they’ve got unique knowledge about a certain niche insurance – that’s one of the key things for us to buy a business.
“At the moment, we’re very actively looking to do the next few acquisitions. So if I look tired, that’s why!” he laughs.
“We now have a full time head of M&A, Jamie Richards, and he’s constantly looking for the next potential deal but also making sure we do deals in the right way.”
Despite wider economic pressures and rising business costs in the UK, Thomas remains firmly focused on growth.
“We’ve got one new product that we’re building, and we’re quite close to a launch, plus more M&A,” he says.
“If we sat down again in a year’s time, I’d expect we’ll have done a few more transactions which will hopefully take us into other products or markets.
“We’re also looking at opportunities with emerging tooling, or the existing AI tooling, to refine what our proposition looks lke for customers – that’s probably the most interesting because of the scale of the opportunity.”
