InsuranceDekho, an insurtech platform owned by CarDekho Group, has raised $150 million in Series A funding consisting of a mix of equity and debt from Goldman Sachs Asset Management and TVS Capital Funds along with participation from Investcorp, Avataar Ventures and LeapFrog Investments.

InsuranceDekho was founded by Ankit Agrawal and Ish Babbar in 2016. Speaking to businessline about the fundraise, Agarwal said, “it is a good time to have capital in the bank. It just puts InsuranceDekho in a better place than a lot of other players. We would want to spend the money expanding into real Bharat, and focus on how can we go from 160 cities operations to 300-400 cities. We want to spend more on the tech products, and a couple of M&A opportunities that we have identified, among other things.”

Innovative products

The latest funding will also be used by InsuranceDekho to launch new innovative products in the health and life categories, grow the company’s micro, small & medium enterprise (MSME) insurance business, and strengthen its leadership team. The company aims to achieve annualised premium run-rate of ₹3,500 crore by March 2023. Ankit Agrawal, CEO and Co-founder, InsuranceDekho, also noted that the company’s burn rate has always been low and he expects InsuranceDekho to become profitable in the next year.

Agrawalsaid, “We need to go beyond the urban regions when it comes to insurance penetration in the country. To realise our goal of democratising insurance for the general public, we are expanding our reach and will continue to build on our tech-based solutions and empowered advisors so that they can serve every village and region of India by the end of the year. India is on the verge of a revolution in insurance, and InsuranceDekho is well positioned to meet the insurance needs of every Indian.”

Ish Babbar, CTO and Co-founder, InsuranceDekho, said: “Insurance distribution in India is a complex problem that needs innovative solutions. The fundraise will enable us to deploy scalable insurtech solutions in the areas of data analytics, Artificial Intelligence, last mile servicing and claims management while keeping customer experience at the core of everything.”

Currently, InsuranceDekho gets 82 per cent of its premium from tier- II and beyond regions. It is present in more than 1,300 towns covering 98 per cent of pin codes in India and is working towards establishing 100 per cent penetration in the country. Today, a majorly 80 per cent of the company’s revenue comes from motor insurance, while the rest comes from health, life and MSME insurance offerings. 

Expanding portfolio

By the end of this calendar year, InsuranceDekho aims to have more than 2,00,000 insurance advisors active on its platform. InsuranceDekho works with multiple insurance providers and has integration with 46 insurance companies across India offering more than 380 insurance products including 175 products for health and life. InsuranceDekho intends to expand its portfolio by offering more products in near future.

Haitong Securities India acted as sole investment bank to the fundraise. Amit Jain, CEO and Co-founder, CarDekho Group, said, “Celebrating the spirit of entrepreneurship and thriving on the robust value system, CarDekho Group has promoted the culture of being a ‘house of founders’ who have fostered various disruptive ideas and propelled these businesses to the orbit of sustainable growth with profitability. It’s heartening to see that InsuranceDekho under Ankit’s leadership, has come a long way as it continues to disrupt the Insurtech space in India by leveraging its unparalleled unit economics, the best technology, phenomenal partner practices, and innovation to set new benchmarks in stakeholder experience.”

Broader coverage

Rajat Sood, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management said: “Technological innovation is transforming the Indian insurance industry by making coverage more accessible and affordable. InsuranceDekho has demonstrated a proven ability to bring new-to-insurance channel partners to their platform, while empowering them through technology-based solutions and working closely with insurers. We look forward to leveraging our global domain expertise and supporting the management team in its expansion to provide broader coverage and more solutions nationwide.”

InsuranceDekho was incubated within auto-tech and IPO bound Unicorn, CarDekho Group. InsuranceDekho is a brand name owned by Girnar Insurance Brokers (GIBPL). GIBPL was incorporated in 2016 and has been granted the license to act as a direct insurance broker by the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDAI) in 2017.