Acko: New Insurance Startup By Coverfox Co-Founder Varun Dua Bags $30 Mn Seed Funding

Mumbai-based fintech startup Acko General Insurance has secured $30 Mn in Seed round.

The investors include Narayan Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures; Venk Krishnan and Subba Rao of NuVentures; Kris Gopalakrishnan; Hemendra Kothari of DSP Blackrock; Atul Nishar – founder & Chairman of Hexaware Technologies; Rajeev Gupta, veteran investment banker and founder of Arpwood Capital, Accel Partners and SAIF Partners.

Vivek Mathur, Managing Director, SAIF Partners said, “We believe fintech worldwide and specially in India is going to evolve from enabling convenient distribution to disruptive product creation and Acko is an endeavour in line with this evolution. Consumers need to be given more innovative product choices, at a price point that is ‘designed’ for them & at an unparalleled convenience and service levels. All of this is only possible within the construct of ‘manufacturing insurance’ and thus we are delighted to support Acko in being the first fully digital insurer of the country.”

Acko was founded in 2017 by Varun Dua. The company recently received its in principle regulatory clearance to launch a General Insurance business in India.

The company recently received its in-principle regulatory clearance to launch a general insurance business in India. It has received its R3 license in September 2017.

Prior to founding Acko, Dua co-founded Mumbai-based, online insurance distribution platform Coverfox, along with Devendra Rane in 2013. With this, Dua has moved on from Coverfox to fully operate Acko. Catamaran Ventures, SAIF Partners, and Accel Partners have earlier backed Coverfox.

Varun Dua, founder, Acko said, “With Acko we want to make insurance so straightforward that consumers don’t need to talk to multiple people to get advice or fill up forms. Consumers should be able to access low prices in one click, based on their risk profile and be confident that at a press of a button – their claim will get paid in the fastest possible time. In today’s connected world, we believe it can reach a point that the customer should get his claim without him even lodging it. Connectivity can make it possible and the ecosystem today exists to make it happen.”

As per a company statement, Acko will operate as an independent general insurance company with its entire operations offered through the digital platform. The company will create products and deliver opportunities in areas such as personalised insurance products based on user consumption behaviours.

The Indian fintech market, currently standing at $1.2 Bn, is forecasted to touch $2.4 Bn by 2020. Lending and payments, in particular, have also paved the path for this unprecedented growth. In February 2017, Times Internet launched an online insurance distribution platform ETInsure. Other players in this segment include Easypolicy, PolicyBazaar, and BankBazaar among others.

Update:

In May 2018, global ecommerce behemoth Amazon led a $12 Mn funding round in the company.  Ashish Dhawan, the founder of private equity firm ChrysCap, also participated in the round along with Catamaran Ventures, the personal investment arm of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy.

Dua had told in a media statement that the startup will be beefing up its technology. It’s heavily tech-intensive, both, operationally and technology-wise, to set up claims across the country. The other thing Acko will do is scale up its marketing efforts and the business overall.

[The story was last updated on July 2, 2018.]