Axinan Eyes Growing Digital Insurance in Asia with Series A

Axinan, a Singapore-based insurtech company raised its Series A financing as it taps into the rising appetite for digital insurance and better user experience across Southeast Asia and beyond. The Series A financing round is led by NSI Ventures (Singapore), joined by Linear Venture (China), and other investors.

Founded by Wei Zhu, who was previously the CTO of Grab, the company has developed real-time risk engines to determine the likelihood of e-commerce returns based on user demographics and shopping behavior online. Since graduating from PayPal’s Singapore incubator last year, the company has seen millions of transactions flow through its models, and has helped manage risks for several e-commerce and marketplace platforms, including Tokopedia, its first partner, which launched in 2016 under stealth mode.

“The pace of people in Southeast Asia embracing Internet mobile in their daily life has been incredible. We want to create innovative products by using big data and technology to better serve those needs,” said Wei, who has more than 20 years of technology leadership positions in Facebook, Microsoft and Grab. According to the latest Google and Temasek report, the region’s Internet economy spending is US$50 billion in 2017, and is expected to be US$200 billion in 2025.

In the coming months, the company will be unveiling other partnerships, which will see Axinan expand to other parts of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Hong Kong.  Wei credits the company’s rapid execution to his team’s shared vision and deep expertise in big data, actuarial risk management and machine learning. His existing team brings a wealth of experience from global Internet giants such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, regional heavyweight SEA, as well as risk management expertise from top insurance companies such as Munich Re.

“This is only the beginning. We have ambitions to develop digital insurance products across different verticals such as logistics, health, and travel, and become the region’s leading digital-only insurer” – Wei Zhu .

To catalyze the pace of development, Axinan is looking to expand its management-level hires in business development, operations, actuarial, commercial, and technology positions. Axinan will also leverage on NSI Ventures’ ‘sleeves up’ approach in building great companies from the region.

“Axinan’s unique data-centric approach to microinsurance is well-placed as digital consumption proliferates alongside increasing connectivity in Southeast Asia. We are very excited to work with Wei and his team to scale and expand across the region.” expressed Hian Goh, Partner at NSI Ventures.

“We are fortunate to be partnering with NSI to help Wei and his team capture the large opportunity in Southeast Asia,” added Harry Wang, Partner at Linear Venture, a China-based fund that invests in companies with strong data applicability.

Source: Axinan