Insurance tech startup Acko Insurance announced on Wednesday that it has raised $224 Mn in the latest round. Private equity major General Atlantic led the round while Canada’s largest pension fund, CPPIB, and Lightspeed growth were among the new investors who participated in this round. Existing investors including Intact Ventures and Munich Re ventures also took part in the funding round. The company has been valued around $1,1 Bn, a massive jump from $400 Mn valuation it commended in the last year’s funding round.
The announcement about Acko’s latest funding came barely hours after Paytm Insurance announced INR 923 Crore investment deal with Swiss insurance company Swiss Re.
Acko’s latest fundraise also has a secondary component, according to Economic Times. This implies that some of the existing investors will either seek partial or complete exit from the company.
The four year old startup will join the likes of Digit Insurance and PolicyBazaar in India’s ballooning unicorn club.
Acko is founded by Varun Dua, who was earlier the co-founder of Coverfox, which has sort of slided into oblivion since Dua’s exits.
The Bengaluru based startup is backed by several marque investors and e-commerce giant Amazon. Some of its prominent investors include Elevation Capital, Accel, Ascent Capital and Flipkart’s Binny Bansal. The startup claims that it has 70 Mn customers, clocking a run rate of nearly $150 Mn in premium.
India’s insurance market is indeed lucrative one given that the massive portion of India’s population is still not covered by insurance. This untapped market is so huge that India’s digital insurance is not a winners take all market. The market is supposedly big enough to accommodate at least 10-15 players.
The outbreak of COVID pandemic has also further helped in accelerating the growth of India’s tech insurance market.