Gojek-backed insurance startup snags funds from LeapFrog, Xiaomi

Published 02 Sep,2020 via Bloomberg Markets - PasarPolis, the insurance tech startup that counts three top Indonesian unicorns Gojek, Tokopedia and Traveloka among its early backers, has raised $54 million in new funding.

Investors in the Series B funding round include LeapFrog Investments Ltd., Xiaomi Corp., SBI Investment, Alpha JWC Ventures and Intudo Ventures, according to a statement on Wednesday.

Founded in 2015, the Jakarta-based startup offers micro-insurance, allowing ride-hailing drivers, couriers and online shoppers and sellers to buy protection that cost as little as a few U.S. cents. In 2019, PasarPolis sold more than 650 million policies.

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The company aims to leverage technology to provide an easier and speedier experience for mobile-savvy consumers to choose between products and submit claims, said Chief Executive Officer Cleosent Randing. PasarPolis will use the capital to invest in artificial intelligence technology to build personalized insurance products and expand its operations in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

“Some big insurance companies are more than a hundred years old and there hasn’t been a lot of innovation in the industry,” Randing said in an interview. “As Amazon is building innovation against the likes of Macy’s, we want to ultimately make insurance a delightful experience where you don’t need to make claims but they will be made automatically.”

The latest funding bolsters PasarPolis’s position in a market where competition is heating up. The insurance penetration rate in Southeast Asia remains low at about 3.6%, said Randing. That compares with 11.2% in South Korea and 8.9% in Japan, according to latest available data from EY.

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