Digit Insurance is India’s newest unicorn, valued at $1.9 bn

Cloud based general insurance company Digit Insurance said Friday it had been valued at $1.9 billion, following a $18.4 million (Rs 135 crore) funding round expected to close later this month.

The Bengaluru based company is the first unicorn from India in 2021. Startups valued privately at $1 billion or more are dubbed unicorns.

Read: Unicorn sightings in a pandemic year

The company is raising its latest round of capital from existing investors A91 Partners, TVS Capital and Faering Capital, Digit Insurance founder and chairman Kamesh Goyal told TechCircle. The round is expected to close by the end of the month.

“Funds raised will be used in growing the business further, investing in processes and technologies and for meeting the regulatory solvency requirement,” Goyal said.

The company also counts Prem Watsa’s Fairfax India Holdings among its investors.

Earlier in February 2020, cricketer Virat Kohli and actor Anushka Sharma participated in the company’s first external funding round of the startup, investing Rs 2 crore and Rs 50 lakh respectively. Digit Insurance had raised a total of $ 84.85 million (Rs 606.7 crore as per exchange rates at the time of funding) in that round from a clutch of investors including A91 Partners, TVS Capital and Faering Capital, who had invested Rs 200 crore each.

Post that round, Digit was valued at $765 million.

“In an almost-recession like year for most businesses and when the insurance industry itself grew by 0.1% (general insurer’s growth, excluding standalone health and specialised), Digit grew by 31.9%, earning a premium of $186 million (April’20-Dec’20) and claims to have 1.5 crore customers since inception,” the company said in a statement.

The company claimed that, within a span of three years, it has garnered profits in all three quarters of FY 20-21, as per IFRS standards. 

In terms of overall financial performance, Digit Insurance’s operational revenue grew 149.4% to Rs 1,247 crore in the financial year ended March 2020 (FY19-20), according to filing accessed from VCCEdge. It managed to trim losses by 30% to Rs 193.1 crore in FY20 from Rs 279 crore in FY19. 

Bengaluru-based Digit Insurance was founded by Goyal in 2017. Before founding Digit, the insurance industry veteran headed H8- Asset Management & US life insurance Company for Allianz Asset Management. 

This article has been amended from the original to reflect that Faering Capital, A91 Partners, TVS Capital invested equal amounts in the company's February 2020 funding round and the round was not led by any one investor.