Insurify, a US-based insurance comparison platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI), has announced raising US$23 million in a Series A funding that will fuel its pivot into the home and life insurance segments.
In a statement, the insurance technology (insuretech) startup said the latest funding round was co-led by MTech Capital and Viola FinTech and participated by Nationwide, Hearst Ventures, and MassMutual Ventures.
The company, founded in 2013 by Gene Shkolnik, Giorgos Zacharia, Snejina Zacharia, and Tod Kiryazov, claims to be the most comprehensive insurance quotes comparison platform in America. Since it launched, the firm closed 125,000 policies worth over US$10 billion of insurance coverage.
With the fresh capital, Insurify said it will be expanding into home, renters, and life insurance comparison from just car insurance. It also announced the appointment of Gene Shkolnik, former senior vice president of engineering at Kayak, as its chief technology officer.
Insurify delivers value to both the customer and the insurance company by removing marketing and agency costs, protecting personal information, and empowering both large and small insurance companies by providing access to new customers they might not otherwise reach.
According to data cited by the company, 8 in 10 Americans live paycheck to paycheck, with insurance being one of the top monthly expenses. People are also looking for ways to save, yet shopping for car insurance is still a laborious, confusing, and frankly, painful process — especially for the economically disadvantaged and the Millennial and Gen Z generation.
“Our mission is to make insurance shopping transparent, and to empower everyone to make insurance decisions on their own without the help of an agent, where incentives are rarely aligned,” said Snejina Zacharia, Co-Founder and CEO of Insurify.
The insurance comparison firm first raised US$2 million in its seed funding round in 2016 and then went on to raise another US$4.6 million in another round in 2017.
MTech Capital, one of the co-anchors in the funding round, said price comparison sites across different products and markets have empowered consumers by driving price transparency and significant cost savings.
“We believe the distribution of auto insurance in the US is at an inflection point as consumers are increasingly purchasing it online, and that Insurify is positioned to be the industry leader that helps buyers find savings,” said Kevin McLoughlin, Partner and Co-founder of MTech Capital.
