ACKO Enters Unicorn Club After Raising $255 Mn From General Atlantic, Others

Bengaluru-based insurance aggregator ACKO Insurance became the latest entrant to the coveted unicorn club after raising $255 Mn Series D funding round. The new round of investment was co-led by General Atlantic and Multiples Private Equity. 

The funding round also saw participation from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Lightspeed along with existing investors, Intact Ventures and Munich Re Ventures. This fundraise values the startup at $1.1 Bn.

The transaction is subject to approval by the country’s insurance regulator, IRDAI. With ACKO entering the unicorn club, India has seen a record of 33 startups entering the unicorn club in 2021. It is interesting to note that the year started with Digit Insurance, another insurance aggregator entering the $1 Bn valuation club. 

With this investment, ACKO has now raised a total of $450 Mn in six rounds from investors including Amazon, Accel, Elevation, Ascent Capital, Intact Ventures, Munich Re Ventures and Flipkart’s cofounder Binny Bansal, among others.

With the latest fundraise, the startup intends to further invest in the healthcare vertical and scale its team, particularly within technology, product and data science. 

 “We also continue to deepen our health strategy and intend to invest over USD 150 million in the health business in the near future. We believe health insurance products, claims innovation and a deeply connected ecosystem of health services that improve health outcomes for customers are today’s most urgent needs,” Varun Dua, founder and CEO of ACKO said in a statement. 

Founded in 2016 by Varun Dua and Ruchi Deepak, ACKO Insurance is a digital insurance policy provider. 

The startup claims to have one of the largest market shares in embedded insurance products like mobility and gadget insurance across large digital consumer platforms like Amazon, MakeMyTrip, Ola, Urban Company, Bajaj Finance and others. 

The startup also covers nearly a million gig workers in the country through partnerships with companies including Zomato and Swiggy.

The startup’s retail health insurance product is due to launch by early next year.

ACKO competes against the likes of Digit Insurance, IPO-bound Paytm’s Paytm Insurance, Coverfox, Ideal Insurance, and IPO-bound Policybazaar. 

It is worth noting that the parent of two insurance aggregators – Paytm and Policybazaar are going public within a span of the next 30 days and are raising INR 18,300 Cr and INR 6,000 Cr respectively. Yesterday (October 27), Swiss RE picked up a 23% stake in Paytm Insuretech for INR 920 Cr.