VCats’ Investor Panel Included The Likes Of Nitesh Prakash Of Ola, Atul Jain of Samyakth Finserv And More
Venture Catalysts has invested a sum of $1 Mn in Kolkata based comprehensive insurance management startup Ideal Insurance Brokers Pvt. Ltd in its seed round of funding.
A consortium of industrialists and business leaders from the VCats’ investor panel participated in the investment round, including the likes of Nitesh Prakash of Ola, Atul Jain of Samyakth Finserv and promoters of Nandan Steel, Maithan group, Primarc, Artha group amongst others.
Commenting on the investment, Dr. Apoorv Ranjan Sharma, Co-Founder and President, Venture Catalysts said, “Ideal Insurance’s strong positioning in the specific, low-competition domains of insurance, such as fleet insurance management, credit and liability insurance, start-up insurance etc. and successful diversification into healthcare insurance with 121 Policy, has built the trust of VCats’ investors.”
Atul Jain further added, “Considering the apprehensiveness most Indians have regarding the insurance sector due to its various hidden clauses and norms, we believed trust and transparency in operations were the most important virtues needed by a business to succeed in this field. Ideal Insurance scored highly on these parameters.”
Ideal Insurance was launched by Rahul Agarwal as an insurance-based risk solution provider. It currently offers an entire range of insurance products in diverse domains of health, life, fire, marine, infrastructure, credit, and more.
As an IRDA licensed consultant, Ideal Insurance is able to deal with all the insurance companies of India-Public or private, life or general. This allows the company to create a diversified insurance portfolio for its clients to help them reap optimum benefits. From creating an insurance roadmap for its clients to risk evaluation and claim settlements, Ideal Insurance facilitates every part of a client’s insurance operations.
“Breaking free from the traditional approach of agents representing insurance companies, Ideal Insurance has adopted a diametrically opposite approach of representing clients- both retail and corporate – for whom we manage their entire Insurance Portfolio,” shared Rahul in a media statement.
Ideal Insurance’s current clientele includes names such as Zoom Cars, Meru Cabs, Chetak Infra, Keventer Agro, Bazaar Kolkata, Trident Hotels, Indian School of Business, InMobi, and moreIdeal Insurance is also empaneled with Banks and Financial institutions to provide Insurance Audit Report for their clients.
With a team of 170, the startup is operational in six cities namely Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.
Additionally, it has also aggressively forayed into crop insurance market and is expected to get almost $7.6 Mn (INR 50 Cr) of premium in the upcoming kharif season. Corresponding to its expansionary goals, Ideal Insurance recently acquired a Mumbai based Insurance Broking Company, which is currently pending IRDA approval.
Elaborating on his plans regarding the funds raised, Rahul said, “The funds will be deployed primarily for building a strong infrastructural support for our operations and backend team as well as for marketing purposes. With the development of our dedicated health insurance portal www. 121policy.com, the investment has come at a much-needed stage and will definitely bolster our growth and diversification plans.”
Further, with plans to rapidly expand in the second tier towns by establishing at least 10 more branches within the next financial year, the startup aspires to generate a turnover of $76.4 Mn (INR 500 Cr) by 2021.
EasyPolicy, PolicyBazaar, Bankbazaar, Acko are few of the well-funded insurance tech players in India. In February 2017, Times Internet launched an online insurance distribution platform ETInsure. Indian ecommerce unicorn Flipkart also announced its plans to start selling insurance products on its financial marketplace in November 2017. Also, recently in February 2018, Paytm incorporated two Insurance companies: Paytm Life Insurance Corporation Ltd and Paytm General Insurance Corporation Ltd.
As per IBEF march 2018 report, the country’s insurance market is expected to quadruple in size over the next 10 years from its current size of $60 Bn. With the rising competition, and growing opportunity, will the latest funding be able to help Ideal Insurance in gaining an edge in the Indian insurance market, will be something to watch for?
