Jungle Ventures makes its insurtech investment in Turtlemint

Mumbai: Turtlemint has raised fresh funding from Singapore-based Jungle Ventures, its first investment in the insurtech category, bringing the startup’s Series D fundraising to a close at $46 million.

Jungle Ventures' portfolio includes internet and software companies such as Moglix and blue-collar workforce management platform Betterplace. In November, the Mumbai-based insurtech startup had raised $30 million from GGV Capital, American Family Ventures, MassMutual Ventures and SIG, as part of the Series D round. Existing investors Blume Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Nexus Venture Partners, Dream Incubator and Trifecta Capital had also participated in the round.

Turtlemint has raised $69 million till date. The company said it would utilise the latest funding to grow its distributor network in the next 18 months, ramp up its reach within existing geographies, add new locations, build product capabilities, and for marketing.

Founded in 2015 by Dhirendra Mahyavanshi and Anand Prabhudesai, Turtlemint developed a network of over 100,000 insurance advisers that cater to more than 1.5 million customers in over 5,000 metro cities and towns. The company is witnessing the annual premium run rate of Rs 1,800 crore in FY21, which is the current financial year.

According to the founders, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of life insurance, where the penetration among the middle class has been just 0.4%. The startup has seen a 600% growth in health insurance over last year, according to Mahyavanshi. “Categories of population where they would have otherwise never bought health insurance or were looking to buy health insurance have started purchasing it,” he said.

There has been increased growth in the purchase of term life insurance as well. In a departure from the standard view of buying insurance as an investment product or for tax saving, individuals in the middle-class segment are purchasing term insurance for risk protection, he added. “We are looking at different kinds of smaller ticket size products for cancer insurance, critical illness insurance, and personal accident insurance on the health side and the life insurance side and making them more widely available to our distribution network,” Prabhudesai said.

Turtlemint offers car, bike, health and life insurance from over 30 providers including HDFC Life Insurance, HDFC Ergo, ICICI Lombard, New India Assurance, Reliance General Insurance as well as new-age companies like Go Digit. It is an Android mobile and web application used by insurance agents, whom the company refers to as micro-entrepreneurs, for distributing insurance and other allied products. It lets them compare the insurance plans of partner providers. Typically, these agents have passed 12th grade or are graduates from small towns and cities and in the 30-45 age group, it said. In India, overall insurance reach remains low.

It reached 3.71% in financial year 2019 from 2.71% (premiums as a percentage of GDP) in fiscal year 2002, according to the Indian Brand Equity Foundation’s insurance industry report. However, the rapidly growing insurtech sector has close to 110 startups, according to IBEF, including players such as Amazon-backed Acko. Fintech unicorn Paytm also forayed into selling life and non-life insurance products in 2020.

Source: The Economic Times