[Funding alert] Toffee Insurance raises $5.5M from IVM Intersurer, others

Online insurance platform Toffee Insurance secured $5.5 million in its Series A round that was led by IVM Intersurer and saw participation by Omidyar Network, Flourish Ventures, Accion Venture Lab, and Kalaari Capital.

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Toffee Insurance raises $1.5 M in seed funding from Kalaari Capital, Omidyar Network, Accion Venture Lab

In May of last year, Toffee Insurance raised $1.5 million in its seed funding round that was led by Kalaari Capital, Omidyar Network, and Accion Venture Lab. It plans to use the latest funds to expand and leverage three areas—data and product, merchant and customer experience, and lateral distribution—said the company in a statement.

In India, with its vast size and mostly uninsured and under-insured population, the insurance penetration is at a single digit percentage. The insurance market is estimated to surpass 4 percent in 2017 and projected to quadruple over the next 10 years from $60 billion, according to various media reports.

Toffee Insurance was founded by Nishant Jain and Rohan Kumar in December 2017.

The startup makes insurance accessible and affordable by creating multiple innovative, single-event products in new categories. These are aimed at strengthening the safety net for the next half billion, that is, the 500 million first-time internet users expected to come online within the next five years via their mobile phones, said the company in a statement.

Rohan Kumar, CEO and Co-founder, Toffee Insurance, said, 

“The underserved and disempowered segment of the Indian population can easily slide below poverty with a minor health or income setback. Our focus is to carve strong distribution partnerships with products that are contextual to the lifestyle and risks of this target segment and provide ample financial scaffolding. We are excited about the strength of belief that our investors have shown in our vision to reimagine risk mitigation relevant to the needs of these consumers.”

Anuradha Ramachandran, Investments Director at Flourish, said, “Toffee Insurance has created a completely new approach to helping people navigate financial shocks and create safety nets by really unbundling policies to cover those risks that most Indian consumers are worried about. As global fintech investors, this flexible model created by Toffee Insurance is one we want to amplify and replicate in other markets to help solve the global financial health crisis.”

(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)

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