Digi insurer Acko gets $65m from Binny Bansal, others

MUMBAI: Digital insurer Acko said it has raised $65 million in a funding round led by Flipkart cofounder Binny Bansal, RPS Ventures and Intact Ventures. The company will use the capital to fuel its expansion plan. Bansal has invested $25 million in his personal capacity, as ET had first reported in its December 21 edition. This will be Bansal's largest investment, having cut smaller cheques earlier to back early-stage startups.


The funding round, which also saw participation from existing investors Amazon, Accel Partners, SAIF and TechPro Ventures, is expected to value the company between $250 million and $300 million.

Acko did not confirm the valuation figure. The company’s cofounder Varun Dua said: “Insurance is a capital-intensive business. We want to have a strong balance sheet and also invest in growth and technology and will be accessing more capital soon. However, we may need to go through some regulatory approvals for this additional capital.”

With the latest financing round, the total capital raised by Acko has touched $107 million.

The company had picked up one of the largest seed rounds for a startup in India at $30 million in May 2017. The company operates across two verticals — car and bike insurance, which it sells directly to consumers, as well as co-creating products and solutions which cater to new economy and internet companies. These include gadget protection for Amazon, ride insurance on Ola and its drivers, and partnerships with Zomato and gig economy workforce.

The funding has come into Acko Technologies, a holding company of Acko General Insurance. The company is likely to extend its latest round to $80-90 million, subject to regulatory approvals. Avendus Capital was the advisor to the deal.

Acko said it has 20 million unique insurance customers which the company has added in the last 15 months across multiple categories. It has covered over 150,000 vehicles in the last one year. Dua, who is also Acko’s CEO, said growth for the company is coming from new products, while traditional products like auto are also showing traction.

Among Acko’s other backers are NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures, Infosys cofounder Kris Gopalakrishnan, Ashish Dhawan of ChrysCapital, and Hemendra Kothari of DSP Blackrock. Globally, insurtech startups are looking to disrupt the age-old insurance industry, with the likes of Alibaba and Tencent-backed Chinese firm Zhong An tapping the IPO market.