Digit Insurance Parent Bags $45M from Fairfax for Expansion and Launching New Products
Digit Insurance, Bangalore-based a new age insurance startup, which wants to make insurance simple, has raised $44 million in a second round of funding. Canadian billionaire Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Holdings has invested second round of capital ($45 million or Rs 315 Cr) in Digit Infoworks, a parent company for Digit insurance of which a significant part of the investment ($44 million) is given to Digit Insurance. The funding is the largest round in the Indian general insurance ecosystem. This investment brings Digit’s total funding to $94 million (Rs 665 crore).
In June 2017, Digit had secured its first round of funding of Rs 350 crore (~$49M) from Fairfax Holdings in partnership with former Allianz executive Kamesh Goyal. Fairfax owned 45% of Digit at the time while Indian investors led by Goyal held the remaining stake.
Digit Insurance plans to invest the funds in technology to drive its mission of making insurance simple. A significant use of fund will also be invested in launching new lines of products and expansion of distribution network across the country.
Kamesh Goyal, Founder & Chairman, Digit Insurance said, “Our long-term investment is directed towards bringing in technology that can automate & fasten processes and resolve customer pain points. For example, 100% of our flight delay claims are automated & claims are processed in minutes; 87% of our claim approvals happen in just 24 hours due to innovations like smartphone-enabled self-inspections. We also believe that claims are the sole reason why a customer buys our policies, so for us claims are good.” he further added.
Digit has partnered with companies like Flipkart, PayTM, Cleartrip, Sterling Holidays, SOTC, Policy Bazaar & Tanishq with products like Screen Damage for mobile phones or the flight delay cover starting from 75 min. From a claim terms perspective, they have some differentiated features like IMEI linked cover, Worldwide Coverage. They are also a completely Paperless company, accepting only Soft Copies throughout the buying and claims journey. In this short period of 6 months, Digit has diversified into mobile, car, 2 wheeler, travel, jewelry insurance and has led to building a large base of over 4 lakh+ customer.
Founded by Kamesh Goyal, Digit started with a capital base of around Rs 350 crore and has launched products across 3 categories (Motor, Travel, Personal accessories).
Digit has 525 people at present and plans to scale it up by another 200 by September this year.
Other deals in the online insurance space include PolicyBazaar.com raised $200 million (Rs 1,360 crore) led by SoftBank Vision Fund last month; Acko General Insurance Co. Ltd had received $12 million (around Rs 80 crore) led by e-commerce giant Amazon in May; Coverfox’s parent, Glitterbug Technologies Pvt. Ltd, had secured Rs 49 crore ($7.6 million) from Dutch insurance, pension and asset management firm Aegon NV in March; and BankBazaar, raised $30 million (Rs 195 crore) in a Series D round led by UK-based credit rating bureau Experian in October 2017.
