PolicyBazaar Eyes Middle East Market With $75 Mn Funding From Falcon Edge

Online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar has raised an additional $75 Mn in a funding round led by Falcon Edge Capital to expand its presence in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Middle East region. The company’s CEO Sarbvir Singh confirmed the development without sharing further details about the round.

PolicyBazaar, which is managed by parent company PB Fintech (formerly Etechaces Marketing and Consulting Pvt. Ltd), has raised $690 Mn funding to date from marquee investors like Wellington Management, PremjiInvest, Tiger Global Management, Inventus Capital, Tencent Holdings and True North. The company had last raised $130 Mn from SoftBank at a valuation of $1.5 Bn.

The company is now preparing itself to list publicly via a $540 Mn (or INR 4,000 Cr) initial public offering (IPO) this year at a valuation of $3.5 Bn. It is currently underway to finalise merchant bankers, and at least six such bankers are expected to be given the mandate to manage the IPO.

Last July, cofounder and former CEO Yashish Dahiya had announced the company’s plans to go public by September 2021, with the aim to raise $250 Mn as a pre-IPO exercise. He had also elaborated that the company plans to list itself in India, but was also open to the idea of dual listing if the Indian government approves.

PolicyBazaar is an online platform allowing users to life insurance and general insurance, which was founded in 2008 by IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad alumni Dahiya, Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar. It operates two other sister companies — lending marketplace PaisaBazaar and healthtech venture DocPrime.

The two companies — PolicyBazaar and PaisaBazaar — operating under the PB Fintech banner reported consolidated revenue of INR 854.7 Cr in the financial year that ended in March 2020, representing a 147% spike from FY2019’s INR 345.8 Cr. Its expenses grew by 33%, from INR 864 Cr to INR 1150 Cr in the same time period. Subsequently, the company’s loss narrowed about 12%, from INR 344 Cr to INR 304 Cr.

On a standalone basis, the insurtech platform PolicyBazaar reported a healthy 66% increase in revenue, from INR 310.3 Cr in FY2019 to INR 515 Cr in FY2020.  The company’s expenses had also increased by 40%, from INR 525.55 Cr to INR 737 Cr. It’s losses also increased 2%, from INR 213.12 Cr to INR 218.1 Cr.

Paisabazaar reported INR 229 Cr revenue with total expenses of INR 252.9 Cr. The advisory platform reported a 4.1% increase in losses to INR 101.1 Cr from INR 97.3 Cr reported in the previous year.

The parent entity PB Fintech, on the other hand, was the only profitable entity of the three. It reported only INR 147.9 Cr as earnings in the FY2020, but with an expense of INR 99.9 Cr leading to a profit of INR 9.7 Cr. The entity had reported a net loss of INR 15.81 Cr in the previous year, with a revenue of INR 84.04 Cr.

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