After getting $65 Mn funding boost in March this year, insurance startup Acko General has now raised $16 Mn in a fresh funding round. Venture capital firm Ascent Capital, according to company’s latest filing with the registrar of companies (RoC) spearheaded the funding round. Reports further claims that no other prominent investors participated in the round.
As mentioned above, Acko had raised a massive funding earlier this year. The round was led by Binny Bansal, in which the Flipkart co-founder had personally invested $25 Mn; making it Bansal’s biggest bet till date. Apart from Flipkart co-founder, the Mumbai based startup also counts other high profile investors like Amazon, Accel Partners and SAIF Partners.
Leaving aside PolicyBazaar, probably no other insurance startup counts as many high profile investors as Acko does. The insurance startup has also earned the unique distinction of raising one of the biggest seed funding rounds in India’s startup ecosystem. While the seed funding is typically not more than $2 Mn, the startup created quite a flutter by raising massive $30 Mn dollars.
Acko is founded by Vinod Dua, the entrepreneur who had earlier founded insurance startup Coverfox. Like Coverfox, his latest insurance venture also specializes in auto and car insurance. Although India’s auto sector recently has been hampered by sluggish growth, its impact is nowhere to be seen on the auto insurance market. In fact, the auto insurance market is booming and this is been partly credited to heavy penalties and fines being implicated in the recently passed Motor Vehicle Act.
The ongoing boom in the auto insurance market is certainly helping player like Acko to gain traction in the market. However, only time will tell about the longevity of this boom and whether Acko can live up to the hype and faith that high profile investors have reposed on it.