Online insurance platform Policybazaar, has raised $200 million in a funding round led by SoftBank Group’s Vision Fund. With this funding round, Policybazaar has entered the much-touted unicorn status.
Apart from Premji Invest, all of its existing investors including Info Edge took part in the Series F round. Run by EtechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt. Ltd, the startup is now valued at more than a billion dollars.
“SoftBank’s culture of backing disruptive businesses and industry leaders with long-term capital investment gels well with our own values and vision of creating a transparent and empowering financial products marketplace. We hope to gain a lot from their global footprint and experience,” Yashish Dahiya, co-founder and CEO of Policybazaar said in a statement.
Based out of Gurugram, Policybazaar was founded in 2008. It allows users to compare and buy insuranc policies online. According to the company, it currently accounts for nearly 25% of India’s life cover, and over 7% of India’s retail health insurance business.
Banking on the growth of digital insurance, Policybazaar aims to grow at an average rate of 80% over the next three years. It hopes to reach 10 million transacting customers by 2020.
“We believe that the Indian insurance market continues to remain massively under-developed and Policybazaar, supported by SoftBank’s capital and ecosystem, is uniquely positioned to dramatically increase the adoption of insurance products in the country,” said Munish Varma, partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers.
Interestingly, this funding round comes at a time when the online insurance space is gaining immense traction. Last month, Mumbai-based online insurance startup Acko General Insurance raised $12 million in a funding round led by Amazon. Paytm too, set up two insurance units Paytm Life Insurance and Paytm General Insurance Corporation, while MobiKwik is also planning to foray into online financial services starting with insurance.