Seed round exclusive

Keeping pulse

Hi there,

Today, we released our new Pulse of Fintech report in collaboration with KPMG. The report covers the latest fintech financing trends and includes a spotlight on insurance tech. Be sure to get the full report.

Where health insurers are investing

In light of major insurers scaling back their presence on Obamacare exchanges, we looked into where health insurers in the US market are investing and acquiring private companies. See our full analysis on health insurer investments.

Q&A: Kabir Syed, CEO, RiskMatch

This week, we’ve learned that RiskMatch, a commercial insurance marketplace startup, has raised $3M in seed funding from Lightbank with participation from 8VC and Wildcat Venture Partners. 

We caught up with CEO Kabir Syed to get his thoughts on bringing carriers and brokerages on-board and RiskMatch’s near-term roadmap.

Who uses RiskMatch?

RiskMatch is data driven marketplace for commercial insurance. On the broker side, our platform analyzes client data to provide real-time insights and benchmarking. We also provide a complete database of policy pricing and availability information. On the other side of the marketplace, carriers leverage Riskmatch to engage brokers, enabling them to discover policy opportunities that they may have never seen otherwise. 

On acquiring brokerages and carriers

For brokers, we interface directly with senior management. We also see a lot of inbound from word of mouth and referrals.

Change is never easy for anyone. In our industry, it’s not just technology change, but behavioral and business model change that will need to happen. Brokers were some of the first to recognize this, but admittedly it took a bit longer for carriers to move ahead given their legacy technology and staffing infrastructure. A lot of them thought we were crazy and that our model was threatening to their entrenched business processes. We are getting there, but like any new platform or business, we have our own risks.

On its near-term roadmap

We currently manage over $15B+ of premiums for 150 brokers and carriers. This number will double in the next 12 months. Our near term goal is to help our brokers place $500M of business using the platform in the next 12 months and to further enhance the product to provide even deeper insights to our clients. 

Hope you have a great rest of the week.

Matt
@mlcwong

P.S. Join us for The Corporate Innovation Summit at the Bacara Resort & Spa in Santa Barbara, CA from January 10-12th, 2017. If you’re a senior exec leading your corporate innovation, VC, M&A, product or strategy efforts, request an invite here.