Cenova leads $37m round for China's Nanyan Insurtech

The company closed the third tranche of its Series B - led by BOC International - at more than RMB100 million in January. It received a $15 million Series B in 2018 led by global insurer Starr Companies. SIG also took part in the Series B, while BlueRun led a Series A round in 2016.

Nanyan provides artificial intelligence and big data-enabled software-as-a-service (SaaS) for enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), and sales. It claims to have served more than 1,000 clients, including brokers and more than 110 insurers. The client repurchase rate is 95%. 

Last year, the company acquired Medilink, a Malaysia-based health insurance services provider that covers more than 1,700 hospitals in 188 Chinese cities. This acquisition enabled Nanyan to launch its own insurance products, with an initial focus on health cover for children. 

“In the past, products for young children had to be sold in bundles with adults. Now we can launch independent products. We can only innovate if we have end-to-end capabilities,” said Xun Gong, Nanyan's founder, in a statement.

SIG is active in the insurance technology space, having co-led a $25 million for Insgeek alongside China Renaissance New Economy Fund. Other players in the market include health insurance platform Nuanwa Technology received recently received a RMB100 million Series A round, and Huize Holding, a SAIF Partners portfolio company. Huize raised $55 million in a US IPO in February.

According to Willis Towers Watson, insurtech investments globally are accelerating at pace. In the fourth quarter of 2019, they reached an all-time high of almost US$2 billion. Over the full 12 months, investment rose 33.9% year-on-year, while the number of rounds exceeding $40 million rose 90%. 

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Expansion
• Financials
• Technology
• China
• insurance
• Cenova Ventures
• SIG
• BlueRun Ventures