After backing lending company Capital Float recently, Amazon has now invested $12 million in a digital general insurance company, Acko General Insurance. The round of funding also saw participation from ChrysCapital’s Ashish Dhawan, and existing investor, Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures. The latest fund infusion takes Acko’s total equity funding to nearly $42 million, the company said in a statement.
The digital insurance company sells general insurance products like auto insurance and mobile insurance on its online platform. Acko has a partnership with cab-hailing company Ola for in-trip insurance for riders. The insurance program allows users to claim insurance of up to Rs 5 lakh benefits in cases of loss of baggage or laptops, missed flights, accidental medical expense, ambulance transportation cover,
The company was set up by Varun Dua in 2016, who previously founder of Coverfox which operated an insurance distribution company. Acko is also the first insurance company with an online-only policy, which also received the final license from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) in September last year.
In May 2017, Acko had raised $30 million in seed funding from Narayan Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures; Venk Krishnan and Subba Rao of NuVentures; Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-founder Infosys; Hemendra Kothari from DSP Blackrock; Atul Nishar, founder & chairman of Hexaware Technologies; Rajeev Gupta, founder of Arpwood Capital; Accel and SAIF Partners. At the time, the company had 20 employees and was looking to increase it to 45-50 by the end of the year.
Competition
In online insurance space, there are a host of platforms which are offering insurance solutions. Acko primarily competes with companies like Coverox, EasyPolicy, Bankbazaar, PolicyBazaar etc. In April, Coverfox raised Series C funding of $ 22 million in the round led by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group; Transamerica; and other existing investors.
Paytm too is eyeing this space. In February, we reported that Paytm is closer to offer insurance products on its platform as its parent One97 Communication Ltd has set up two insurance units- Paytm Life Insurance Ltd, and Paytm General Insurance Corporation Ltd. In terms of payment wallets, MobiKwik also plans to venture into newer domains of personal and consumer finance with a focus on lending and insurance.
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