Israeli insurtech company Next Insurance has raised $29 million in a Series A funding round led by Munich Re/HSB Ventures along with Markel, Nationwide, and other existing investors. The funding will be used to continue building Next’s own insurance products and expand their offering to new business sectors. The announcement follows their recent release of the first ever Facebook chatbot for small business insurance.
With offices in Palo Alto, California and Kfar Saba near Tel Aviv, Next Insurance is a digital insurance company for small to medium businesses. The company was founded in 2015 by CEO Guy Goldstein, Nissim Tapiro, and Alon Huri. All three were executives at mobile payments company Check, which was acquired by Intuit in 2014 for nearly $400 million. Next insurance has raised $42 million to date and has 25 employees, 13 of them in Israel.
Goldstein said, "The small business sector is vast and extremely varied, yet the small business insurance market is digitally underserved. This is especially true for independent business owners like photographers and personal trainers that we’re already serving. Next’s platform is able to overcome significant challenges by simplifying and expediting the insurance sign up and engagement process for the small business owner and channeling advanced data analytics to create policies that are tailored to the unique needs of different classes of business. Partnering with investors of this caliber will enable us to expand our activities faster and bring valuable products to a wider range of these types of business owners."
Next Insurance develops a direct link with targeted small business owners enabling the company to create uniquely tailored insurance programs that address needs that are not met by traditional and more robust insurance products. Next utilizes direct access with their customers via an online platform that accomplishes in minutes what is now taking days and even weeks. Leading a paradigm shift in insurance for these businesses, this pipeline is creating the data pool necessary to identify the ideal policies, correct prices, and to perfect processes that lead to happier customers.
"Insurance is changing to meet the needs of micro businesses," said Jacqueline LeSage Krause, Managing Director, Munich Re/HSB Corporate Ventures. "Next is a leader in using new technologies, combined with a deep knowledge of clients’ unique needs, to precisely tailor insurance solutions, simply and easily."
Huri said, Next’s model of merging technology and insurance expertise has generated an enthusiastic response from its small business customers. "We are filling a gap in the market. We have seen very impressive growth since we started selling insurance to Personal Trainers and Photographers, and we’re excited to use this funding to expand to other business verticals."
According to Eitan Bek, co-founding partner of TLV Partners, whose firm invested in both the seed and current financing rounds of the company, "Next's team has made impressive progress since its establishment a little over a year ago, and has achieved several product and sales milestones as well as having positioned itself as a formidable player in the SMB insurance space in the US. This addition of strategic investors attests to the significant change expected to occur in this traditional and conservative market."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 3, 2017
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