Israeli P2P insurance co Lemonade raises $34m

Israeli P2P insurance company Lemonade has announced a $34 million Series B financing round. The funding was led by General Catalyst with participation from GV (formerly Google Ventures), Thrive Capital and Tusk Ventures, as well as existing investors Aleph, Sequoia, and XL Innovate. This brings Lemonade's total funding to date to $60 million.

Lemonade's P2P insurance platform is powered by artificial intelligence and behavioral economics. The investment comes less than two months after the Israeli insurtech company launched in New York, and less than a year after announcing its seed round.

Lemonade was founded by veteran Israeli tech entrepreneurs CEO Daniel Schreiber former president of Powermat and president and CTO Shai Winniger, a co-founder of Fiverr.com.

Schreiber said, "We believe in replacing brokers and paperwork with bots and machine learning, and we now have the backing to unleash this formula across new products and geographies.The response from consumers has been overwhelming - this must be the first time people tweeted about how delightful insurance is!"

Lemonade uses bots to deliver insurance to consumers through its app and website. Consumers chat with the AI to file claims too, and the bot is authorized to pay claims instantly and without human intervention. This creates an insurance experience that is fast, simple, and delightful.

"Lemonade is revolutionizing insurance, transforming one of the largest and most outmoded industries into an enjoyable experience for consumers," said Joel Cutler, managing director, General Catalyst and a Lemonade Board member. "I've been blown away by Lemonade's chatbot-driven app. It makes every interaction intuitive. The best is yet to come."

Lemonade was licensed as an insurance carrier in the State of New York on September 15 2016 and filed for a license in California within hours. The company plans a broad expansion in 2017.

"We look for companies that have the potential to radically improve customer experience, and we saw that clearly in Lemonade. They are harnessing a compelling mix of behavioural economics, artificial intelligence, and great design," said Tom Hulme, GV General Partner. "Lemonade's full-stack approach gives it flexibility to keep iterating on that customer experience, and to expand fast in 2017."

Unlike traditional insurance companies, Lemonade takes a flat fee, and gives back unclaimed money to causes policyholders care about through Lemonade's 'Giveback' program.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on December 5, 2016