Singapore-based insurtech Igloo has on Monday announced that it has closed a $36 million Pre-Series C funding round.
Global investment firm Eurazeo, through its insurtech fund backed by the insurer BNP Paribas Cardif, led the investment, Igloo said in a statement.
According to the statement, Openspace and La Maison, who previously participated in Igloo’s Series B and Series B+ fundraises, also joined in, reaffirming their confidence in the company’s strong business fundamentals.
Meanwhile, Eurazeo invested through its insurtech fund focused on innovative technologies and business ideas disrupting the insurance industry, whilst Openspace’s investment in this round comes via its mid-stage fund, OSV+, which is focused on the Series C and D rounds of transformative technology companies in Southeast Asia.
This latest round comes just ten months after Igloo’s previous Series B+ fundraise led by BlueOrchard-managed InsuResilience Investment Fund II.
In total, the company has raised $100 million.
Notably, Igloo’s Pre-Series C round closed at an increased valuation of 50 percent from its Series B+ round in 2022, as the company moves closer to profitability in 2024.
Igloo said the firm is on track to double its 2022 gross written premiums (GWP) at a low burn rate. With its robust engineering core and data focus, the company’s path to profitability in 2024 is also set.
According to the statement, the new funding will go towards both horizontal and vertical merger and acquisition (M&A) opportunities – having added intermediary licenses across Southeast Asia (SEA) this year, in addition to its license in Indonesia.
It will also increase its workforce by 20 percent across engineering, commercial, strategy and insurance-focused verticals.
On the product and value chain enhancement aspect, the firm looks to double down on motor, health, climate-related products, underwriting and claims digitization and artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain technologies.
“The support from our investors is a testament to Igloo’s steady growth and resilience amidst macro headwinds and a validation of our strategy,
“We are the only insurtech in Southeast Asia with a robust profit and loss statement, a diverse multi-product portfolio, and an extensive distribution line,” Igloo Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Raunak Mehta said.
According to the statement, Asia’s insurance market is brimming with untapped potential, especially in emerging economies like Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
Despite the rising adoption of insurance, it said many remain underinsured.
It said this vast, underserved demographic has caught the attention of investors, with companies like Igloo standing out due to their innovative approach to the evolving
landscape in these markets – addressing pain points across the insurance value chain for insurers, sales intermediaries, retailers and consumers.
Igloo’s recent scores include two innovative offerings.
In 2022, it launched Ignite by Igloo, a digital platform that enhances the productivity of sales intermediaries in Vietnam and Indonesia.
Ignite by Igloo works with 22,000 sales intermediaries and agent partners and aims to close 2023 with 50,000 agents as it expands into other markets.
In line with Igloo’s purpose of improving financial inclusion for underserved segments, over 60 percent of Ignite by Igloo’s intermediary partners are female.
Another innovation for Igloo is its Weather Index Insurance, a pioneering blockchain-based parametric insurance for farmers.
The product has drawn interest from partners in Vietnam and
across Southeast Asia for its potential to greatly benefit the agricultural sector.
Despite its novelty in a highly traditional sector, Weather Index Insurance has already been adopted by thousands of farmers since launching last November and covers 20,000 hectares of coffee and padi farms.
“We are thrilled to invest in Igloo with the insurer BNP Paribas Cardif,
“With our investments in China, Indonesia, India, and Singapore, we’re extending our footprint with the ambition to become a leading player in Asia,” said Matthieu Baret, Managing Partner – Venture at Eurazeo.
Eurazeo Managing Director Albert Shyy also said that the firm has been following Igloo for some time now and have been impressed with their evolution into a diversified insurance platform across channels and products.
“The insurance market in Southeast Asia is still very underpenetrated and we believe Igloo is in a strong position to help solve this by making insurance more easily accessible and understandable for consumers,” he said.
According to the statement, Igloo has facilitated over 500 million policies and aims to double its gross wWritten premium (GWP) from 2022.
As of today, it has also actively established over 75 partnerships across six countries, expanding its product offerings to cover consumer finance, e-commerce, and
logistics.
“We’re always thrilled when the opportunity arises to keep investing in a company at the mid-stage that we’ve previously backed – and Igloo’s recent growth and steps towards profitability have given us further confidence in the business’s ability to capture and expand the insurance market in Southeast Asia,” said Jessica Huang Pouleur, Partner, Openspace Ventures.
“Our team has been actively involved in working with Igloo to this point, and those existing relationships will enable us to seamlessly continue adding operational and commercial value as the business integrates, acquires, and strengthens capabilities,” she added.
Igloo is a regional full-stack insurtech firm headquartered in Singapore.
It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia and tech centers in China and India.
The firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create business to business to consumer (B2B2C) insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies.
It has partnered with over 75 well-known brand names across the markets in various verticals, including insurance, telecommunications, e-commerce, hospitality, health tech and financial services.