Vouch, a supplier of enterprise insurance coverage to startups and high-growth corporations, introduced right this moment it has raised $90 million in new funding.
The $90 million determine was raised throughout two rounds: a $60 million Sequence C co-led by SVB Capital (a subsidiary of Silicon Valley Financial institution) and Ribbit Capital that values the corporate at $550 million, and a beforehand unannounced $30 million Sequence B1 led by Redpoint Ventures.
With the most recent financing, San Francisco-based Vouch has now raised a complete of $160 million since its 2018 inception. Different buyers embrace Allegis Group, Sound Ventures and SiriusPoint.
Whereas there are various insurance coverage know-how corporations on the market that serve shoppers, there are far fewer that provide it to corporations, a lot much less startups. Vouch describes itself as “a brand new sort of insurance coverage platform” for startups that gives absolutely digital, “tailor-made protection that takes minutes to activate.”
Over the previous 12 months, Vouch has seen spectacular progress. The corporate declined to disclose onerous income figures, however stated it noticed “7x” improve in its buyer base 12 months over 12 months and presently protects over $5.7 billion in threat throughout hundreds of insurance policies. Right this moment, Vouch has greater than 1,600 shoppers, together with Pipe, Middesk, Neighbor and Routable. It’s also the “most popular” enterprise insurance coverage supplier to the shoppers of Silicon Valley Financial institution, Brex, Carta and WeWork. Y Combinator too additionally refers Vouch to its portfolio corporations.
To Vouch co-founder and CEO Sam Hodges, the flexibility to draw a few of the highest-profile companies within the startup world speaks to the corporate’s understanding of the startup ecosystem.
“It’s our duty to satisfy startup founders the place they’re, and provides startups flexibility as they navigate altering legal guidelines, rules and the digital and bodily places of their companies,” he stated.
Like many different corporations, Vouch needed to shift its mannequin in the course of the pandemic to adapt to the various kinds of rising dangers companies have confronted. For instance, final 12 months, Vouch noticed a change in the place its startup shoppers’ groups had been distributed. Earlier than the pandemic, practically 30% of the groups had been distant. Throughout the pandemic, that determine has shifted to over 53%. Because of this, Vouch developed a broader vary of insurance coverage coverages to adapt to the “new regular.”
Included in its new line of proprietary services aimed toward startups are: work from anyplace protection, broader cyber coverages and embedded insurance coverage. It additionally expanded its underwriting capabilities to serve early-stage to growth-market startups.
Specifically, the work from anyplace protection is in direct response to the pandemic-related shift in distant work and might insure as much as $500,000 per incidence and might embrace a specified property owned by a startup whatever the location of that property.
One main differentiator for Vouch, stated Hodges, is that it’s now the one enterprise insurance coverage supplier for startups that has its personal insurance coverage provider, which suggests the corporate backs its personal insurance policies.
“This functionality means we have now a variety of management over how we construct and underwrite our insurance policies — which interprets into superior protection and a greater expertise for our shoppers,” he stated.
Hodges co-founded Vouch with Travis Hedge three years in the past after seeing how difficult it may very well be for an organization to get the enterprise insurance coverage it wants to start out after which scale.
The purpose is to make it as simple as doable to onboard new prospects and personalize the protection as a lot as doable based mostly on every firm’s wants based mostly on what they do, their buyer base, stage of progress and the founder’s threshold for threat.
“A typical consumer can get a quote and bind their protection on-line in beneath 10 minutes, with none telephone calls or paperwork,” he instructed TechCrunch. “Vouch additionally has many protection options which are uniquely geared for startups. For instance, our administrators and officers protection features a cap desk protection function meant particularly to guard startups.”
Vouch appears at startups that want enterprise insurance coverage on a case by case foundation, Hodges added.
For instance, it asks questions like, “Does an e-commerce firm deal with a really restricted quantity of client-sensitive info?” In that case, it may make sense that it has a decrease cyber insurance coverage protection restrict and pay much less for its coverage.
Conversely, if a startup is making an attempt to boost cash, it’d want to speculate extra in Vouch’s administrators and officers insurance coverage to verify it’s coated ought to disputes come up sooner or later.
Wanting forward, Hodges stated the brand new capital would go towards continued funding in technical capabilities, an enlargement of its product choices, extra hiring and constructing embedded insurance coverage for its companions.
With regard to the embedded capabilities, throughout the subsequent 12 months, all the firm’s companions’ prospects will have the ability to buy Vouch insurance coverage immediately from these companions’ web sites. Vouch’s headcount has greater than doubled, from 55 staff in September 2020 to 125 full-time staff presently, and Hodges expects that can proceed to develop.
Greg Becker, president and CEO of SVB Monetary Group, stated that Vouch’s mission aligns with SVB’s in that they each goal to “empower the innovation financial system.”
“That’s what Vouch is doing right this moment, serving to startups and tech innovators mitigate their dangers as they develop,” he wrote through e mail. “We’re proud to co-lead Vouch’s newest funding spherical to offer startups entry to the insurance coverage they want as they add headcount, improve their buyer base, or increase funding rounds of their very own.”
