Since the start of 2015, the fragmented but growing small- and medium-sized business insurance market has seen a plethora of tech activity by both large insurers and tech upstarts.
Specifically, US startups offering tech-enabled distribution of small business insurance or helping enable existing commercial insurance brokers digitally have raised almost $80M since October 2015. Among the deals’ backers were VCs and growth equity investors, including Canaan Partners, Oak HC/FT, Ribbit Capital, and Comcast Ventures. Insurers backing small commercial insurance startups include XL Catlin’s XL Innovate, Chubb, Munich Re/HSB Ventures, and American Family Ventures.
The most recent is CoverWallet, which raised a $7.8M Series A led by Union Square Ventures in November. Embroker, raised a $12.2M Series A led by Canaan Partners in May, for its online business insurance-management platform and brokerage, which it launched in October.
Earlier this year, Next Insurance, which raised a $13M seed round, partnered with Hiscox to distribute small business insurance online. Insurance comparison company Insureon, which raised a $31M growth round in October 2015, reportedly did close to $18M in revenue in 2014 and has brokered policies for over 175,000 small businesses. Other companies to raise seed financing this year include Bunker, aimed at the freelancer segment, Slice Labs, which debuted its home-share insurance product in Iowa October. In B2B-focused startups, Indio, raised $2M from NEA, Compound and Hiscox for its management platform for commercial insurance brokers in November 2016, while RiskMatch raised $3M in seed funding for its commercial insurance marketplace and portfolio management plaform from Lightbank, 8VC and Wildcat Venture Partners in August 2016.
Large insurers have also been on the move. Berkshire Hathaway Direct dba Cover Your Business launched in December 2015 to sell workers’ comp, commercial auto and BOP online and AIG, Two Sigma Ventures, and Hamilton Insurance Group formally announced its data and analytics platform Attune for streamlining risk submission and small business insurance underwriting in September 2016. Other initiatives include Allstate’s debut of a new business insurance quoting platform and online resource platform for small business owners in October 2016 and Starr Companies’ launch of direct to small business agency Starr Insure this month. Hiscox, the UK-based small business insurance provider, now has more than 150,000 policies-in-force and grew year-to-date gross written premium by 33% through Q3’16.
Given the quickly growing landscape, we used CB Insights Company Comparison Tool to compare funded private US online commercial P&C insurance companies. Other startups operating in the space include Ohio-based commercial-focused insurance agent portal Bold Penguin and Boston-based commercial insurance search engine AskKodiak. Note: This visualization is available across all private companies on CB Insights.
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