Mitisek takes on startup, will leave his job at DU
IMA Financial Group, which is creating its own data-analytics startup, has picked Erik Mitisek to lead the new IMAgine Analytics.
Mitisek, a name familiar to pretty much anyone in Colorado’s entrepreneurial community, will leave his current job as executive director of University of Denver’s Project XITE at the end of July. He said he will continue to work with Gov. John Hickenlooper as Colorado’s chief innovation officer and co-chair Denver Startup Week in September.
“This was the chance to build IMAgine Analytics, an insurancetechnology company. We’ re going to build it and launch it within IMA,” Mitisek said when reached Monday about the new venture. “Yes, I am going to be leaving DU and I’m going back into the startup community. I’m drinking my own Kool-Aid.”
IMA, an employee-owned financial services firm, opened its first location in Denver in 1988. By 2013, it moved its Denver headquarters near Union Station, where it now employs 260 people. The company employs 700 nationwide and is co-headquartered in Denver and Wichita.
Few details were shared about the new IMA venture. But the new business will be part of the InsurTech industry, which uses technology to maximize the insurance industry. Mitisek, who starts as president Aug. 1, “will be responsible for leveraging vast amounts of information to create better experiences for IMA clients,” the company said.
“He is an entrepreneur in every way and has the background, energy and expertise to lead at this important time,” IMA chairman and CEO Robert Cohen said in a statement.
InsurTech includes anything from using big data to create custom insurance quotes to internet-of-things devices, like the sensors from Notion, a Denver startup working with home-insurance firms to text homeowners if the home senses water leaks, break-ins or overheating.
Investors have sunk $3.4 billion in InsurTech startups since 2010, according to PwC, a professional services firm. Insurers from USAA to Northwestern Mutual have also invested millions in robo-advisers and telematics.
Mitisek, a DU grad, returned to the university in April 2016 to lead Project XITE, an initiative aimed at getting departments to tap into the startup community and think like entrepreneurs. He successfully pitched AOL founder Steve Case to include Denver in Case’s Rise of the Rest tour last year, and held student/ industry events like the DisCOver Challenge in March that was sponsored by Fidelity Labs. DU plans to explore the options for a replacement, Mitisek added.
Before joining DU, Mitisek spent three years as CEO of the Colorado Technology Association, and previously founded the travel site Next Great Place.