Insurtech startup BimaPe raises pre-seed capital led by Lightspeed India.
Insurtech startup BimaPe announced on 23 June 2021 that it has raised $545,000 in its pre-seed round of funding. The investment round is led by Lightspeed India Partners, one of India’s top VC firms. Titan Capital, iSeed, and Gemba Capital also partook in the funding round.
Lightspeed India Partners is a recognized name as an investor in firms such as Byju’s, OYO and Udaan.
BimaPe tackles the various challenges faced by consumers while dealing with insurance policies.
About BimaPe
Founded in 2020 by 23 year old Rahul Mathur, this Mumbai-based insurtech startup backed by Y Combinator simplifies insurance for working professionals by leveraging the India stack.
It enables users to manage their family’s insurance effortlessly without any hurdles with a digital interface. Users can get a synopsis of all their insurance policies, make one-click claims, and discover buried insurance benefits from their cards and provident fund.
The insurtech sector has struggled for a long time due to the intricacies involved in various processes, which are not easily comprehensible by the majority of the customers. To cater to this, BimaPe has established its proprietary policy deconstruction algorithm that uses reinforcement learning technology. It summarizes 50-60 jargon-filled pages of insurance leaflets into a jargon-free interface that makes it easy for users to understand what their policy covers and what it does not cover.
Rahul Mathur, Founder and CEO said, “We are also running a small pilot to see whether you can have automated claims. On term insurance we are partnering HDFC Life, Max Life and others, and I think the opportunity is enormous. To make the insurance understanding process simpler, and then to change habits.”
In the seven months since the inception of its beta product, BimaPe claims to have boarded over 12,000 users without any paid marketing.
Investors’ opinion
Commenting on the funding, Harsha Kumar, General Partner at Lightspeed India Partners said, “Adoption of insurance products by Indian consumers is in its infancy. India’s emerging middle class was forced to interact with online only companies for financial services during the pandemic. BimaPe’s emphasis on building a product to guide users to make better insurance decisions has driven strong word of mouth in an otherwise CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) intensive market.”
“At Titan Capital, we are bullish on the insurance sector in India. Our investment in BimaPe sits in line with our thesis that the Indian consumer needs better online tools to make informed financial decisions. BimaPe has uniquely positioned itself via a product first approach to bringing transparency into insurance,” added Bipin Shah, Partner at Titan Capital.
Future plans
According to the official statement, the investment will be utilised to develop its product further, strengthen the team and invest in paid user acquisition for their product.
In addition to managing the customers’ existing insurance plans, BimaPe is also in the process of acquiring an insurance brokerage license, which will benefit it to sell insurance, make money and make its claims integration process far deeper.
Further, BimaPe has partnered with MeitY (Government of India) by integrating with DigiLocker. The platform also plans to soon integrate with Account Aggregator, Health Stack, and insurance companies to procure policy documents on behalf of users and provide them with a custom-made purchase experience.
“At BimaPe, we strive to answer three fundamental questions for working professionals: what insurance does my family have, are we adequately covered, and if not, what can I do about it?” Mathur says.
