InsuranceDekho, owned by Girnar Insurance Brokers, has announced raising $150 million in a mix of equity and debt round. According to a statement issued by the company, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and TVS Capital Funds jointly led the Series A equity round.
Investcorp, Avatar Ventures, and LeapFrog Investments are other investors in the round. According to filings filed with the Registrar of Companies, $36.5 million of the round was reported in January 2023.
The company said in the statement that it would use the funds to scale up its product and technology functions, expand into new markets, pursue inorganic growth, strengthen its leadership team, launch new innovative products in the health and life categories, and expand the company’s MSME insurance business.
Ankit Agrawal and Ish Babbar founded InsuranceDekho in 2016 as a part of the CarDekho Group. This auto tech platform allows consumers to compare different insurance policies as per their requirements and buy the most suitable plan for life, property, and casualty insurance. In 2017, IRDAI issued a Direct Insurance Broker licence to its holding entity, GIBPL.
This also marks the 10th investment from TVS Capital Fund’s Rs 2,000 crore third private equity fund. As part of its investing thesis, the fund already backs Go Digit General Insurance and will continue doing so. The fund invests in niche consumer segment bets, business-to-business, and financial services.
“Insurance is largely under-penetrated in India and is still at 4.2% of the GDP. Secondly, we have a strong insurance regulator driving growth in the space. There is a lot of room for growth in the space,” said Praveen Sridhar, Partner at TVS Capital Funds.
“InsuranceDekho is an insurance broking firm which works through an agent model—aggregating these agents. The agency or broker model is a larger market than the digital market, and insurance is a push product. The growth anticipated from Tier II and III cities for insurance will play well into the InsuranceDekho model, which has a large network of agents,” he added.
The penetration will only increase due to the government’s efforts to establish a single platform—Bima Sugam—for many insurance-related services such as policy sale, renewal, and claims settlement, according to Praveen.
With more than 380 insurance products, including 175 for health and life, InsuranceDekho now claims to be directly integrated with 46 insurance companies across India. By March 2023, it plans to reach an annualized premium run rate of Rs 3,500 crore, according to the announcement.
The company competes with other listed insurance intermediaries, including Turtlemint, which Jungle Ventures and PolicyBazaar back.
