Insurtech InsuranceDekho eyes $40-50 million capital raise in Series A round

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InsuranceDekho, an insurtech startup, plans to do a Series A capital raise of $ 40-50 million, Ankit Agrawal, CEO and Co-Founder has said.

“We will hit the market soon..in a couple of weeks. This will be one of the biggest Series A capital raise round for a company in this insurtech space”, Agarwal told BusinessLine.

Launched in 2017, InsuranceDekho had in 2020-21 clocked ₹1,200 crore premium and sourced 1 million policies and plans to grow 3X in 2021-22.

To further expand its reach in Tier 3 and beyond cities, InsuranceDekho has come up with a new initiative, ‘InsuranceDekho Saathi’ under which users would be able to evaluate and buy insurance products from their trusted local offline stores. For this initiative, this insurtech proposes to partner with 50,000 micro-entrepreneurs by the end of FY’22 across 500+ Tier 3 cities to further deepen its reach and give more choice to its customers. These micro-entrepreneurs are engaged as Point of Sales Persons (PoSPs) of InsuranceDekho.

All InsuranceDekho Saathi partners will create awareness about and cross-sell insurance products as allowed under IRDAI guidelines like life insurance, health and motor insurance to their network and assist local customers with policy support and claim settlement on the field.

“Insurance penetration in India is ~4% currently, and this number further dwindles as we move to Tier 3 and beyond cities. We believe that there is an imminent need for us to create awareness about and expand the distribution of insurance products in the country. Backed with this vision, we launched the InsuranceDekho Saathi program earlier this year and have observed high traction from both partners and customers. The initiative is a true win-win for the ecosystem as it helps our Saathi partners to find social standing and increase their income opportunities while at the same time enabling customers to buy an insurance product from their trusted local retail partner,” Agrawal said.

This startup is keen to position itself as the trusted advisor for insurance buyers across the country, online or offline. “I am not saying no to digitization when we talk offline. We are completely aligned towards digitization and online movement. But we have to understand that insurance is high touch and feel product. People want to look at somebody when they are buying insurance. So we need micro entrepreneurs to get the (offline) distribution “, he said when asked why the startup wants to focus on offline when there is so much traction in online platforms.

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BukuWarung raises $60 million in Series-A round

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Indonesian fintech company BukuWarung, founded by Indian entrepreneurs Chinmay Chauhan and Abhinay Peddisetty, has raised $60 million in Series-A funding, increasing the total fund raised to about $80 million.

The round was led by US-based venture capital firms Valar Ventures, early investors in global fin-tech unicorns Wise and N26, and Goodwater Capital, the company said in a statement.

Existing investors such as Quona Capital and angel investors such as former GoPay CEO Aldi Haryopratomo, Klarna founder Victor Jacobsson, Khatabook CEO Ravish Naresh and partners from SoftBank and Trihill Capital also took part in the round.

The funding is the largest Series-A round raised by an MSME player globally, it added.

Team size

BukuWarung will use the funding to enhance technology and product capabilities across core accounting, digital payments and commerce products. The company is expected to double the team size within a year by hiring across regions, including India, Indonesia and Singapore.

Abhinay Peddisetty, Co-Founder & CEO of BukuWarung, said: “The digital solutions specific to the needs of small businesses in the emerging economies of Asia and the world are the need of the hour with the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic”.

“We are already a leader in MSME digital payment in Indonesia. With this funding, we aim to leverage the talent base and learnings from the MSME ecosystem across Asia, including India, for the digital empowerment of MSMEs in Indonesia and beyond,” he added.

BukuWarung is a Y-Combinator backed technology company that builds digital infrastructure for 60 million MSMEs in Indonesia. To date, the company has more than 6.5 million registered merchants on the platform across 750 Indonesian cities and towns.

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