From startups protecting against cyber attacks to a new home insurer aiming to hold down costs with a digital-first approach, six insurtech businesses made our Fintech 50.
Over the past year, some insurtech companies have faced an even tougher road than those in other beleaguered categories of fintech—witness the now-public stocks of Fintech 50 alumni Lemonade, Hippo and Root, which are down 75% to 99% from their peaks. Yet six private insurtech companies made our Fintech 50 for 2023, with each taking its own novel approach to biting off a tiny piece of the $1.4 trillion U.S. insurance market.
Cyber insurance startup At-Bay made its Fintech 50 debut this year. Founded by a former captain in the Israeli Military Intelligence, it provides insurance and consulting services to mitigate security risks for small and medium-sized businesses. It reached $79 million in revenue in 2022, up from $40 million the year before. Its larger cyber insurance competitor Coalition also made the Fintech 50 (its third straight year on our honor roll). Coalition doubled its number of cyber customers in 2022 to 60,000 as it refocused on its mainstay business. (In January 2023, Coalition sold Attune, a small business commercial insurance company it had acquired just 15 months prior.)
Chicago-based Kin Insurance is trying to do what Hippo aimed to do for home insurance: take a digital-first approach to making a decades-old product cheaper and easier to use. One difference in Kin’s strategy is that it forgoes agents to keep costs as low as possible. It’s also expanding geographically at a slower pace: Kin is currently only available in six states, which keeps underwriting and marketing costs trimmer. Today it has 105,000 policyholders, and it hit $68 million in revenue in 2022, up from $30 million in 2021.
Santa Monica-based Sure, which makes back-end software that helps large companies manage their insurance operations, also made its Fintech 50 debut this year. Its tech does everything from generating insurance policy documents to moving money between consumers and insurers so they can pay their premiums. Toyota, Mastercard and Farmers Insurance are among its customers.
Here are the six insurance companies that made the Fintech 50 in 2023:
At-Bay
Provides cybersecurity insurance and consulting services to help small and medium-sized businesses mitigate security threats, ranging from data privacy breaches to financial fraud.
Customers run the gamut from professional and financial services firms to manufacturing companies and healthcare businesses. At-Bay reached $380 million in annual gross written premiums in 2022.
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Funding: $292 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Hapri and others.
Latest valuation: $1.35 billion.
Bona fides: $79 million in revenue and 33,000 customers in 2022, up from $40 million and 13,000 the year prior.
Cofounders: CEO Rotem Iram, 43, a former captain in the Israeli Military Intelligence; chief risk officer Roman Itskovich, 40; Etai Hochman, 36; Tilli Kalisky, 45.
Coalition
Combines cybersecurity insurance with proactive monitoring tools to help businesses manage cyber risk. Backed by large insurers like Allianz, Swiss Re and Lloyd’s of London, it provides up to $15 million of cyber insurance coverage in every U.S. state. In January 2023, it sold Attune, a small business commercial insurance company it had acquired just 15 months prior, in a shift to refocus more narrowly on cyber insurance.
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Funding: $770 million from Valor Equity Partners, Allianz X, T. Rowe Price and others.
Latest valuation: $5 billion.
Bona fides: By the end of 2022, it had 60,000 cyber insurance customers, compared with 32,000 the year prior.
Cofounders: CEO Joshua Motta, 39, a former CIA officer and Goldman Sachs investment banker; John Hering, 40.
Insurify
Digital insurance agent and comparison site that helps consumers find home, auto and life insurance from up to 20 different insurers. Also has a white-label, embedded service for other companies that want to make money selling insurance digitally–Toyota and digital bank Chime are customers.
Headquarters: Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Funding: $128 million from Motive Partners, Viola FinTech and Growth, MassMutual Ventures and others.
Latest valuation: $600 million, according to PitchBook.
Bona fides: Attracted 2.9 million new customers in 2022, up from 2.1 million in 2021.
Cofounders: CEO Snejina Zacharia, 46; her husband, Kayak President Giorgos Zacharia, 49; and chief product officer Tod Kiryazov, 38.
Kin Insurance
Sells home insurance policies digitally in six states (Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina and Arizona), forgoing insurance agents in a bid to keep costs and rates lower. The insurance company itself is structured as a co-op owned by policyholders, with Kin taking 32% of premiums as a management fee. Reinsurance covers about 50% of the risk. Had 105,000 policyholders at the end of 2022, up from 62,000 a year prior. Plans to expand to Texas, Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina and Georgia over the next year.
Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois.
Funding: $242 million from QED Investors, Commerce Ventures, Flourish Ventures and others.
Latest valuation: $875 million.
Bona fides: Grew revenue to $68 million in 2022, up from $30 million in 2021.
Cofounders: CEO Sean Harper, 42, who previously cofounded ecommerce startup FeeFighters, which was acquired by Groupon in 2012; CTO Lucas Ward, 40, a former cofounder and CTO of fraud analytics startup Rippleshot.
Next Insurance
Provides industry-tailored small business insurance policies (liability, auto, workers comp, etc.) online using artificial intelligence to process applications in 10 minutes and to offer 24/7 access to certificates of insurance and claims support. Companies like Intuit use Next Insurance’s white-label service to offer commercial insurance to their own customers. Gross written premium revenue reached $809 million in 2022, up from $650 million in 2021.
Headquarters: Palo Alto, California.
Funding: $881 million from Capital G, Battery Ventures, Munich Re/ERGO and others.
Latest valuation: $4 billion.
Bona fides: 420,000 small business customers, up from 300,000 at the end of 2021.
Cofounders: CEO Guy Goldstein, 55, a former jet pilot in the Israeli air force who also cofounded Check, a personal finance and bill payment app that Intuit acquired in 2014 for $360 million; CTO Nissim Tapiro, 53; chief growth officer Alon Huri, 46.
Sure
Provides embedded insurance software, or back-end technology that helps large companies manage their insurance operations. Sure’s tech does everything from generating insurance policy documents to moving money between consumers and insurers so they can pay their premiums. In March 2023, it launched a new feature that aims to make it easier to offer return shipping protection, where, for a small fee, consumers can pay upfront to get free returns.
Headquarters: Santa Monica, California.
Funding: $123 million from Declaration Partners, Kinnevik, W.R. Berkley Corporation and others.
Latest valuation: $550 million.
Bona fides: Has 100 customers, including Farmers Insurance, Toyota and Mastercard.
Cofounders: CEO Wayne Slavin, 39, a serial entrepreneur who cofounded and sold a data backup service and worked on Barnes and Noble’s Nook e-reader; chief strategy officer Jarod Kolman, 46, Slavin’s cousin who is also the founder and chairman of a South African real estate management company.
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