Qoala, an Indonesia-based insurtech company, today announced its US$13.5 million Series A fundraise led by a JV between funds from South Korea’s Kookmin Bank and Telkom Indonesia, Centauri Fund.
The round also saw participation from Sequoia India, Flourish Ventures, Kookmin Bank Investments, Mirae Asset Venture Investment, and Mirae Asset Sekuritas. It also includes existing investors such as MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia, MDI Ventures, Surge, SeedPlus, and Bank Central Asia’s Central Capital Ventura.
The company said that it will use the funding to invest further into its technology, people, and brands to fuel its multi-channel strategy.
Founded by Harshet Lunani and Tommy Martin, the company provides customers with a multi-channel insurance solution offering two business models:
- Working with large scale platform partners to drive awareness about insurance with consumers due to the low penetration of insurance in Indonesia.
- Supporting the traditional offline insurance channels, which currently contributes 99 per cent of insurance premiums, to become digitally enabled through Qoala’s app for agents/brokers; and supporting the creation of new intermediaries in the future.
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In addition to its currently available offerings, the Jakarta-based company also plans to accelerate its new COVID-19 support effort within the next month for consumers and MSMEs across Indonesia to provide pay-outs to those affected by the pandemic. This includes those who have had their treatment partially or fully subsidised by the government and are hence ineligible per usual insurance plans.
According to Kenneth Li, Managing Partner of Centauri Fund, Indonesia has a considerably low gross written premium (GWP) to GDP ratio in comparison to other emerging countries, coupled with the large growing middle class in need of more security in their financial planning.
“This allows for an immense potential for the insurance sector to take off in Indonesia through innovative propositions,” said Li.
Just over a year after launch, Qoala claimed to have processed over two million policies per month, up from 7,000 policies in March 2019. It has diversified its partnership portfolio to serve five core industries: travel, fintech, consumables, logistics, and employee benefits.
The startup has a number of partnerships with prominent brands across Indonesia, including Grabkios, JD.ID, Shopee and Tokopedia. Qoala’s customers also include other digital platforms such as Investree, PegiPegi, and RedBus, as well as retail giants such as MAP Group.
Their go-to-market approach is supported by over 20 insurers including global players such as AXA Mandiri, Tokio Marine, Great Eastern as well as local insurers such as ACA, Adira and BRI Life.
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Image Credit: Qoala
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