Mumbai: Leading Indian insurtech player, InsuranceDekho has raised a whopping $150 million in a funding round consisting of a mix of equity and debt. This would be the largest ever series A round by an Indian Insurtech company. Goldman Sachs Asset Management and TVS Capital Funds led the equity round.
Additionally, Investcorp, Avataar Ventures, and LeapFrog Investments also participated in the funding round. Meanwhile, Haitong Securities India acted as the sole financial advisor to the fundraising.
In a statement, InsuranceDekho announced to use of the latest funding to scale up its product and technology functions, expand to new markets, launch new innovative products in the health and life categories, grow the company’s Micro, Small & Medium Enterprise (MSME) insurance business, strengthen its leadership team and pursue inorganic growth opportunities.
Ish Babbar, CTO and Co-founder, InsuranceDekho, said, the fundraising will enable us to deploy scalable Insurtech solutions in the areas of data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, last-mile servicing, and claims management while keeping customer experience at the core of everything.
Founded by Ankit Agrawal and Ish Babbar in 2016, InsuranceDekho has seen significant premium growth since its inception. The insurtech aims to achieve an annualized premium run rate of ₹3,500 crores by March 2023.
Amit Jain, CEO, and Co-founder, CarDekho Group on the latest fundraise said, “it’s heartening to see that InsuranceDekho under Ankit’s leadership, has come a long way as it continues to disrupt the Insurtech space in India by leveraging its unparalleled unit economics, the best technology, phenomenal partner practices, and innovation to set new benchmarks in stakeholder experience.”
Rajat Sood, a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management said, InsuranceDekho has demonstrated a proven ability to bring new-to-insurance channel partners to their platform, while empowering them through technology-based solutions and working closely with insurers.
Goldman Sachs AMC looks forward to leveraging its global domain expertise and supporting the management team in its expansion to provide broader coverage and more solutions nationwide, Sood added.
Further, on the latest funding, Ankit Agrawal, CEO, and Co-founder said of InsuranceDekho said, “to realize our goal of democratizing insurance for the general public, we are expanding our reach and will continue to build on our tech-based solutions and empowered advisors so that they can serve every village and region of India by the end of the year. India is on the verge of a revolution in insurance, and InsuranceDekho is well positioned to meet the insurance needs of every Indian.”
Currently, India’s current insurance penetration is 4.2% of GDP compared to 12% in the USA and 7%2 globally. And about 85% of India’s existing insurance premium is centered in the metros and Tier 1 cities. InsuranceDekho aims to change that!
As per Praveen Sridharan, Partner, TVS Capital Funds, though insurance is vital for the financial security of everyone, its penetration is still at 4.2% of Indian GDP compared to a global overage of 7.4%. The key to this is to access the middle and lower middle-income class—the next 400 million—living in the next 1000 towns of India. InsuranceDekho, with its agency model and digital DNA, offers a powerful mechanism for this penetration to expand.
Sridharan added, “We are convinced on the InsuranceDekho model. Of course, we always back founders who can demonstrate bringing alpha and were impressed with Ankit and the team basis their execution capability, operational excellence, and superior technology skills. We are delighted to partner in their journey of enabling access to insurance products to the 600,000 villages of India.”
To provide access to insurance throughout the country, InsuranceDekho gets 82% of its premium from Tier 2 and beyond regions. At present, the company’s footprint is in more than 1,300 towns covering 98% of pin codes in India.
The company is working towards establishing 100% penetration in the country.
By end of 2023, the insurtech player targets to have over 2 lakh insurance advisors active on its platform.
InsuranceDekho explained, typically, most InsuranceDekho insurance advisors observe a threefold increase in total household income within six months of being associated with the company. The advisor’s ability to earn more allows them to significantly improve the quality of living for their families.
Headquartered in Gurgaon, InsuranceDekho works with most insurance providers and has direct integration with 46 insurance companies across India offering more than 380 insurance products including 175 products for health and life.
InsuranceDekho intends to expand its portfolio by offering more products in near future.
