Vouch Becomes Licensed Insurance Carrier, Rakes in $90M in Funding

Vouch announced it has brought in $90 million in new funding and has also become a licensed insurance carrier as well as “the go-to insurance provider for the startup ecosystem,” according to a on Friday (Sept. 10) blog post.

“The decision to become an insurance carrier was directly informed by the needs of our startup clients,” wrote Co-Founder Travis Hedge and Chief Insurance Officer John Wallace.

“Vouch now backs our own insurance policies, alongside world-class reinsurance partners. This strengthens our ability to deliver insurance policies that cover the unique risks of startups for founders, employees, investors, and the partners that rely on them,” the Vouch officials said in the blog post.

Vouch has rolled out a new suite of insurance coverage and invested in its technical capabilities to help startups.

That includes “Work From Anywhere” coverage, to insure property owned by a startup regardless of location; broader cyber coverages for tech firms with Cloud Cover, enhanced coverage for outages caused by cyberattacks; comprehensive coverage for early to mid-stage startups with underwriting capabilities that can serve companies as they scale from idea to IPO; and embedded insurance designed to partner with startups to make buying insurance more accessible for customers.

Related: Insurance FinTech Marshmallow Lands $85M

Meanwhile, U.K. insurance FinTech Marshmallow reached a valuation of over $1.25 billion this week after an $85 million Series B funding round, bringing the total amount it’s raised in the last year to more than $100 million.

Founded in 2017 by twin brothers Alexander and Oliver Kent-Braham, Marshmallow bills itself as “car insurance with a conscience,” aimed at insuring migrant drivers and a diverse customer base at affordable prices.

See: How Open Banking Could Innovate Insurance Payments to Strengthen Customer Relationships

One study finds that 54 percent of financial institutions (FIs) and insurance firms continued to see strong growth in their mobile and digital visitor traffic in the six months prior to April. Almost half of banks are seeking online solutions that can improve their customers’ financial health, sparking increased interest in the potential of open banking and application programming interfaces (APIs).

According to one study, 87 percent of countries now have some form of open APIs.