First and foremost, the cost of customer acquisition remains prohibitive when the insurer doesn't have the scale to amortize it - which, of course, is not the case with Lemonade.

The New York-based start-up has quintupled its business volumes in four years, but this feat is still a long way from breaking even. In 2023, it will post a loss similar to the three previous years.

No change over the past financial year, even though Lemonade had reduced its marketing expenditure in the second half of the year. This does not bode well for the coming year, as CEO Daniel Schreiber intends to step on the gas pedal again.

The strategy is aggressive, but Schreiber has no choice: Lemonade must grow or disappear, which promises to be difficult given the current state of its resources. A new capital increase therefore seems indispensable in the more or less short term.

Unfortunately, the market has turned 180 degrees. In the twelve months following Lemonade's IPO, it valued the start-up at more than x45 its sales - a far cry from today's levels, which hover around x2 sales.

If Softbank's presence in the capital is seen by some as a wild card, it is also reminiscent of the precedent set by WeWork. WeWork also set out to reinvent its sector, with the results that we all know.