Coverfox gets $2.1 mn capital infusion from parent Glitterbug Technologies

Coverfox Insurance Broking, which owns an eponymous online brokerage portal, has raised $2.1 million (around Rs 15.7 crore) from its parent company Glitterbug Technologies.

Between March 23 and March 30, Coverfox issued shares worth Rs 15.7 crore at Rs 18,900.79 per share in five tranches, regulatory filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs showed. In December, the company raised $1.8 million in three tranches from the parent company, separate filings showed.

The capital infusion happened in the same month that Coverfox investor and Avaana Capital co-founder Sanjib Kumar Jha took over as the interim CEO of the Mumbai-based online insurance aggregator.

Jha replaced Premanshu Singh, who joined rival Paytm as the senior vice-president of its financial services business. 

In June, Coverfox was in talks with Paytm for a potential acquisition by the Noida-based digital payments company, but a deal did not materialise.  

Coverfox was founded in 2013 by IIT Bombay graduate Devendra Rane and MICA Ahmedabad alumnus Varun Dua, who quit the company in 2016 to set up insurance company Acko. 

It is backed by venture capital firms Accel, SAIF Partners and Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy-led Catamaran Ventures. San Francisco-based insurance giant Transamerica, World Bank group member International Finance Corp and Dutch insurance, pension and asset management firm Aegon have also invested in the company.

It competes with firms such as SoftBank-backed PolicyBazaar and Turtlemint. 

The company last raised capital from external investors in 2018, when International Finance Corporation, the private-sector investment arm of the World Bank, and venture capital firm Transamerica led a $22 million Series C funding round. 

In the financial year 2018-19, Coverfox saw its losses widen as its operating revenues more than doubled for the financial year ended March 2018.