Next Insurance raises $250 million at a $4 billion valuation
Commercial insurer Next Insurance closed a $250 million funding round led by FinTLV Ventures and Battery Ventures with participation from CapitalG, Group 11, Zeev Ventures, Founders Circle, and G Squared, bringing its total funding to over $880 million. This last round values the company at $4 billion.
Founded in 2016, the company now serves over 200,000 small businesses, thanks in large to its ~$500 million acquisition of AP Intego, a digital insurance agency providing small commercial insurance products mainly through software companies such as Intuit, Gusto, Square, and Toast.
Speaking of Intuit ; yesterday it posted a job where it is looking for an Insurance Product Manager “to build a world-class insurance business.” One of the role responsibilities includes leading initiatives “to design and file new products, including coverage forms, rate, and rule support, based on collaboration with underwriting, data, claims, and engineering teams,” which suggests Intuit is serious about developing and expanding its reach within insurance.
Connecting the dots, Next Insurance competes with players from within and outside the category of insurance. Its primary insurance competitor is Hiscox that likely has more API integrations than Next and serves over 400,000 small business customers. However, outside of insurance, Next competes with software companies like ADP and Intuit (its partner as of October 2020) that have a captive audience and find they have no problem going at insurance solo.
“This latest round of financing is a validation of our vision which is to make it dramatically easier for small business owners to get the insurance coverage they need by removing friction from the customer experience. It starts with developing a comprehensive digital product portfolio under one roof, continues with leveraging technology that improves the customer experience, and ends with a network of integrated partnerships that bring policy purchasing to the customer within the systems they already use. We’re not done improving the lives of small business owners, but we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished thus far.” – Guy Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of Next Insurance.
