Digital insurance platform Toffee raises seed funding

Digital insurance platform Toffee has raised $1.5 million (around Rs 10 crore) in seed funding led by venture capital firm Kalaari Capital, impact investors Omidyar Network and Accion Venture Lab, a company statement said.

Run by Gurugram-based Toffcover Insurance Marketing Pvt. Ltd, the startup plans to use the funds to develop its product; build an insurance tech platform with capabilities across data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence; and to expand its team, the statement added.

The startup had previously raised angel funding from Vivek Gujral, co-founder of insurance software firm OneShield Inc, and Harshal Shah, Citibank executive.

Founded by Nishant Jain and Rohan Kumar, the digital-only platform launched its beta version in December 2017. Toffee’s tech platform can analyse, predict and customise insurance products for millennials across health, lifestyle and personal accidents. It claims that buying insurance takes less than 90 seconds and that it processes simple claims in under two hours using a completely digital interface.

“The funding will strengthen our capabilities to develop better products across new channels in a scalable form. Our goal is to unbundle products and repackage them in a youth-friendly way that focuses on the benefits of insurance to almost make it a commoditised way to sell insurance, rather than as a financial product,” Kumar, Toffee’s chief executive, said in the statement.

Currently, the platform is integrated with seven insurance manufacturers to facilitate real time policy issuance and claims processing.

“Insurance is highly under-penetrated in India, and it needs product innovation to reach masses. Toffee is trying to create simple and small ticket size insurance products and distribute them in a very contextual way [and this] has huge potential to drive the mass adoption,” said Vani Kola, managing director, Kalaari Capital.

Other deals in online insurance

Investor interest in the online insurance space has recently seen a spike.

On Monday, Mumbai-based online insurance startup Acko General Insurance Co. Ltd raised $12 million (around Rs 80 crore) in a new round of funding led by e-commerce giant Amazon.

The US-based e-tailing giant is also an investor in BankBazaar, which also sells insurance.

Last month, online insurance platform Coverfox completed its $22-million (Rs 144 crore) Series C funding round led by the International Finance Corporation, the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank.

Also in April this year, Kolkata-based Ideal Insurance Brokers Pvt. Ltd had raised $1 million (Rs 6.5 crore) in a seed round from funding and incubation platform Venture Catalysts.