Insurance policy aggregator Easypolicy gets $2.2M from Unilazer, others

Online insurance policy aggregator easypolicy.com has raised $2.2 million (Rs 15 crore) in a fresh round of funding led by media entrepreneur Ronnie Screwvala's Unilazer Ventures.

Existing investor Anil Jain, managing director at Refex Energy Ltd, and a bunch of undisclosed investors also participated in the round, the company said.

Noida-based Easypolicy Insurance Web Aggregators Pvt Ltd, which operates the portal, will use the funds to enhance customer experience, improve the technology platform and for marketing, founder CEO Alok Bhatnagar said. The funds will also be used to expand product offerings under more verticals that include travel insurance.

Bhatnagar said the company's revenue has increase six-fold over the past two years, but he didn't give any details. He said the insurance sector in India, where only about four per cent people have a cover, is poised to grow rapidly thanks to favourable regulations and heightened investor interest.

Easypolicy competes with the likes of PolicyBazaar.com. Bhatnagar, a former Thomson Reuters executive, founded the company in 2011 along with Policybazaar founding member Divyanshu Tripathi and Neeraj Aggarwala. It compares and sells life and non-life categories plans across insurers.

Easypolicy had earlier raised an undisclosed sum from Gaurav Burman of Dabur Group through his family office.

In April last year, Gurgaon-based eTechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt Ltd, which runs PolicyBazaar, raised around $40 million (Rs 248 crore then) in its Series D round of funding from PremjiInvest, the personal investment vehicle of Wipro chairman Azim Premji, and other investors.

In July last year, Chennai-based A&A Dukaan Financial Services Pvt Ltd, which sells third-party financial services products through the online platform BankBazaar.com, raised Rs 375 crore ($59.1 million) in Series C funding from e-commerce giant Amazon and other investors.

Screwvala had floated Unilazer Ventures around three years ago after selling UTV to Disney. Unilazer has been making private investments in segments such as consumer, services, agriculture, healthcare, education and microfinance.

Most recently, Unilazer invested in mobile phone accessories maker DailyObjects. In December, the firm backed Mumbai-based mHealth Ventures India Pvt Ltd, which runs a virtual consultation platform called MeraDoctor.