InsurTech in brief #4
Cross-border parallels between InsurTechs & an insider's view on building a virtual insurance company in Hong Kong!
Hey folks; today’s update doesn’t necessarily have a theme so let’s get right in -
Who? Employee wellness & benefits platform
What’s up? Raised its Series C round [1]; round size undisclosed but the Series B (March ‘19) was $25M [2]
Why care? Impressive figures - 700,000 employees serviced via 600 clients; however, for a venture-backed business - 50% YoY (FY 19) and 65% YoY (FY 18) seems a bit on the lower end!
I’d watch out for CXA Group; something is always “up” when round sizes aren’t disclosed this late in the lifecycle; also, look at the YoY growth in their engineering team size! (Note: overall staff size has remained almost flat with a drop in mid 2019)
Well, let’s jump to the analogue to CXA Group for India
Who? SME health insurance & benefits provider
What’s up? Nothing in particular; except I’d like to highlight their presence to you!
Why care? Tailwinds are strong; health insurance for employees (i.e. Covid-19 specific coverage) is mandatory in India following the outbreak of the pandemic; PlumHQ is seeing strong demand for the Covid-19 product they rolled out with Religare Health Insurance [3] earlier in April.
OneDegree
Inside scoop - OneDegree is likely to announce a funding round shortly; as revealed by co-founder Alex on the Asia InsurTech podcast
Other details - Alex highlighted how the combination of a lack of electronic medical record system for veterinarians in Hong Kong and the low appeal of pet insurance to brokers provided a “wedge” for OneDegree into the pet insurance value chain (initially as a Tech vendor!)
Trivia - OneDegree isn’t a single entity; it is composed of a Tech vendor and (the recently licensed) virtual insurance company.
That’s all from me! Hope you found this brief an interesting/informative read!
PS - I’ve love to hear from you in the comments section below or on Twitter - why have you subscribed to my newsletter? Is there any topic you’d like me to write about?
Next week - Reliance Jio x Insurance (this Tweet seemed to have garnered a lot of attention!)