InsuranceDekho Acquihires Sequoia-Backed SME Insurance Platform Verak

Automobile marketplace unicorn CarDekho’s insurance arm InsuranceDekho has acqui-hired Sequoia and LightSpeed-backed SME insurance distribution company Verak over a month after raising $150 Mn in its Series A funding round.

InsuranceDekho founder and CEO Ankit Agrawal took to LinkedIn to announce the deal. However, he did not disclose the acquisition cost.

“Since its inception, Verak has had a solid foundation and ventured into the untapped micro-business insurance scheme, bringing small shopkeepers under the insurance umbrella for the first time and registering 30% MoM (month-on-month) premium growth every month,” said Agrawal in his social media post.

“With this acqui-hire, InsuranceDekho will have a stronger foothold in this rapidly growing market and a stronger presence in the SME insurance vertical and micro-business insurance schemes,” he added.

In a statement, InsuranceDekho said it will be onboarding the Verak team, including its founder Rahul Mathur. 

“InsuranceDekho’s deep relationships with insurers and strong infrastructure will help us resolve the challenges that we faced during our formative years, such as commanding higher commissions from insurers, getting the right talent to hire, and API-based insurer integration,” Verak founder Mathur said in the statement.

In September 2021, Mathur, who earlier founded Y Combinator-backed BimaPe, announced the closure of the fintech startup. At that time, he also said that he was launching Verak.

As per its website, Verak offers business insurance, liability insurance, among others, to small and medium enterprises. 

Meanwhile, InsuranceDekho was founded by Agrawal and Ish Babbar in 2016. It is an insurance aggregator which allows customers to compare policies provided by various insurance providers and purchase the most suitable plan. The startup currently claims to have tie-ups with 46 insurance companies offering over 380 plans on the platform.

Its $150 Mn funding round, which was a mix of equity and debt, saw participation from the likes of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, TVS Capital Funds, Investcorp, Avataar Ventures, and LeapFrog Investments.

The startup then said that the fresh funds would be used to grow its MSME insurance business, scale up product and technology functions, expand to new markets, launch new innovative products in the health and life categories, and more.

InsuranceDekho competes with the likes of Policybazaar and Acko.

As per an Inc42 report, India’s fintech market is anticipated to become $2.1 Tn by 2030 with lendingtech emerging as the most lucrative sub-sector.