Turtlemint closes a USD 25 million funding round led by Sequoia India
Existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures also participate
Tech-based platform Turtlemint, fast emerging as a leader in the insurance distribution space, has closed a USD 25 mn funding round – led by Sequoia India, with participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners and Blume Ventures.
Turtlemint provides recommendations to customers based on proprietary algorithms and rich data analytics. The company caters to nearly 25000 licensed insurance experts (PoSP’s) across 700 plus cities, to help customers select and complete their insurance purchase using their proprietary MintPro app.
With volumes doubling every quarter, this model has been extremely successful in helping Turtlemint increase insurance penetration for customers, along with widening career opportunities for insurance agents across Tier 2 cities in India.
“A lot of customers, while depending on online research to learn more about the available policies, ultimately prefer to buy their insurance from an intermediary they can personally interact with. We developed MintPro to bridge this online-offline gap”, said Dhirendra Mahyavanshi, Co-founder, Turtlemint
Anand Prabhudesai, Co-founder, Turtlemint, added, “The MintPro app helps PoSP’s sell multiple applicable insurance policies from different companies to their clients – ranging from life to health to motor insurance – through a simple online process that requires no paperwork. It’s all done on their smartphones.”
The Mumbai based startup, which has pioneered this PoSP model, will use the funds to further scale up their digital network across the country.
“Turtlemint has pioneered a new model that is not only bringing new agents into the insurance domain but is also helping them become more productive & effective with their customers by making them digitally savvy”, said Harshjit Sethi, Principal, Sequoia Capital India Advisors. “Sequoia India is excited to partner with them from the early stages – the company is growing at a very fast clip and is well on its way to transforming insurance distribution in the country”, he added.
“The digitization of insurance value chain is a huge opportunity and benefits all the participants – customers by providing access to the right products, agents through significant business growth and productivity, and insurers through improved transparency. We have been impressed by Dhirendra’s and Anand’s vision and execution of transforming the insurance eco-system by working in close collaboration with agents and insurers; and are privileged to have partnered with them from the concept stage” said Anup Gupta, Managing Director, Nexus Venture Partners.
“We have extreme confidence in the leadership and the entire team of Turtlemint. We have seen the company grow from their initial days and seen their efforts to transform the selling & buying of insurance between an agent and customer. Blume ventures foresees a great contribution of Turtlemint to the insurance eco-system through their technology innovation” said Ashish Fafadia, Partner, Blume Ventures
Turtlemint closes a USD 25 million funding round led by Sequoia India
About Turtlemint
Turtlemint was launched three years ago by Dhirendra Mahyavanshi (IIM Calcutta alumnus) and Anand Prabhudesai (IIT Bombay and Chicago Booth alumnus). The founding team has rich experience in the insurance sector as well as in building and scaling consumer Internet businesses, having held operational roles in companies such as ICICI Lombard, Yahoo, eBay and Nokia.
Customers can choose from wide variety of policies by over 20 insurers across Car, Two-wheeler, Life and Health insurance. They purchase the insurance online or take the help trusted PoSP to complete the process. The platform takes into account over 15 factors such as family composition, cashless hospital network near the consumer, and special cover needs like maternity, in-home care, etc. to recommend the appropriate health insurance cover and the right policy for the customers and their families.
