Mumbai-based online insurtech startup Turtlemint has raised fresh capital from Singapore-based venture capital firm Jungle Ventures and closed its Series D financing round. With the latest cash infusion from Jungle Ventures, Turtlemint’s Series D has seen a total fundraise of $46Mn, according to a company statement.
The insurtech startup had earlier raised $30 Mn in Series D funding round led by GGV Capital, American Family Ventures, MassMutual Ventures and SIG in November 2020. That round also saw some participation from its existing investors Blume Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Nexus Venture Partners, Dream Incubator and Trifecta Capital.
The latest Series D financing round takes the total fundraise by Turtlemint to $69 Mn. Founded in 2015 by Prabhudesai, Dhirendra Mahyavanshi and Kunal Shah, Turtlemint offers insurance-related technology to “demystify” insurance and help the customer make the right choice. It offers a technology platform for insurance agents to sell their products.
The company works with over 100,000 insurance advisors, equipping them with digital tools to offer wider and more relevant recommendations to consumers and speed-up the onboarding process. It also serves as a broker for over 40 Indian insurance companies and charges them a commission for policies it sells. The company claims to have more than 1.5 Mn customers.
In a statement on Tuesday, Mahyavanshi, cofounder and CEO of Turtlemint, Mahyavanshi said that the company will focus on expanding its insurance distribution network to the most remotest part of the country.
“We have been focusing on empowering our PoSPs (point of sale persons) with technology, which has enabled them to advice the right products at all points of time. We would continue to focus on spreading our distribution to the remotest part of the country and further deepen our presence in the existing locations,” Mahyavanshi added.
Jungle Ventures is a VC firm focused on early and growth-stage investments, and in India it already has investments in Livspace, BookMyShow, Moglix, TookiTaki, Builder among other startups.
According to a VCCircle report, Turtlemint’s businesses grew by 2.5X growth in its insurance business in 2020 as more Indians turned to health and motor insurance in the past year driven by the pandemic.
“The funds raised would be utilised to further strengthen the Turtlemint platform by adding user-friendly new-age insurance products, developing engaging content for customer education, and enabling digitisation across all models of distribution – traditional and new. We have an endeavour to serve 50Mn+ customers in the next five years and we are on track to achieve the same,” added Prabhudesai.
The $280Bn insurance market which is largely dominated by banks and government agencies such as Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC) has seen a slew of disruption from tech startups in the last 2-3 years.
VC-backed insurance startups including Acko, RenewBuy, PolicyBazaar, Bank Bazaar, Digit, Coverfox have entered the market focused on superior user experience and interface, leading to a massive boom in insurtech in India.
According to Inc42 Plus estimates, the total investment in Indian fintech startups was $7.62 Bn with a total deal count of 478 between 2015 and Q1 2019. Out of the total funding, 50.13% or $3.82 Bn was in payments tech startups, followed by 25.49% ($1.94 Bn) in lending tech startups, while other fintech startups made up 16.35% of the total investments, and insurance tech contributed 8.03% ($612 Mn).
Source: Inc42
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