Singapore-based Igloo, previously referred to as Axinan, has raised $8.2 million because the insurance-tech startup seems to be to broaden its foothold in half a dozen Southeast Asian markets and Australia.
InVent, a company enterprise capital arm of telecommunications agency Intouch Holdings, led Igloo’s prolonged Collection A spherical, the startup instructed TechCrunch. Current buyers Openspace Ventures, a enterprise capital fund that invests in Southeast Asia, and Linear Capital, a Shanghai-based early-stage enterprise capital agency specializing in tech-driven startups, participated in this spherical, which makes four-year-old Igloo’s to-date increase to $16 million. It raised about $1 million in its Seed financing spherical.
Igloo — based by Wei Zhu, who beforehand served as Chief Expertise Officer at Seize — works with e-commerce and journey companies corresponding to Lazada, RedDoorz, and Shopee in Southeast Asia to provide their prospects insurance merchandise that present safety on electronics, and protection on accidents and journey.
The startup, which additionally operates in Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, stated more than 15 million customers have benefitted from its insurance merchandise to date, and in the final one 12 months it has processed more than 50 million transactions.
Igloo, which rebranded from Axinan this month, stated insurance merchandise are proving particularly helpful to — and standard amongst — people through the coronavirus outbreak.
Wei Zhu instructed TechCrunch that the startup has seen a surge in transactions and buyer acquisitions in the final 45 days. “Whereas some journey associated enterprise have seen a dip, the bigger e-commerce enterprise continues to see a surge,” he added.
“With COVID-19 impacting each aspect of private life and enterprise, digitisation will help the world regulate to the brand new regular. That is particularly obvious in insurance, the place we will faucet on digital channels for distribution and in addition for creating consciousness,” he stated.
“We see that digital insurance is on the rise in Southeast Asia, and we consider that Igloo, with our digital-first method and enlargement of our product portfolio into private well being, accident and different associated merchandise will help fill these gaps and deal with shoppers’ wants for private well-being,” he added.
He stated the digital insurance penetration stays low in Southeast Asia, and Igloo sees huge alternative in the area. In accordance to one estimate (PDF), Southeast Asia’s digital insurance market is at the moment valued at $2 billion and is predicted to develop to $Eight billion by 2025.
The startup, which competes with a handful of startups together with Singapore Life and Saphron, will use the recent capital to develop its enterprise growth and engineering groups and broaden its presence in the half-dozen markets. It’s already partaking with telecom operators, banks, non-banking monetary companies, and journey companies, it stated.