Jungle joins $46m Series D for India's Turtlemint

The start-up raised $30 million in Series D funding in November from a group including GGV Capital, American Family Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, and SIG. They were joined by existing investors Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Dream Incubator, and Trifecta Capital. Total funding to date is $69 million.

While Singapore-based Jungle invests primarily in Southeast Asia, it also targets companies where it believes it can help with expansion into Southeast Asia or globally. However, Turtlemint is expected to use the fresh capital primarily for a domestic operations buildout. Jungle, which closed its third fund in 2019 at $240 million, described the deal as its first insurtech investment.

Turtlemint focuses on auto, motorbike, health, and term life insurance products. Its brokerage service is marketed as simple and jargon-free, allowing users to compare and sign up for plans with no paperwork in a matter of clicks. The company claims to have facilitated the sale of more than one million policies and compared more than 30 million quotes since its inception in 2015.

Dhirendra Mahyavanshi, one of Turtlemint’s co-founders, noted that COVID-19 has contributed to 600% growth in the company’s health insurance business during the past year. “Categories of population where they would have otherwise never bought health insurance or were looking to buy health insurance have started purchasing it,” he said, according to The Economic Times.

Insurtech has emerged as a popular investment area in recent months, with India’s Acko, Singapore’s Igloo, Hong Kong’s Coherent, and Indonesia’s Qoala among the start-ups attracting VC attention. Last week, global insurance giant Allianz Group led a $75 million round for regional financial technology provider WeLab, with a view to building out pandemic-ready insurtech offerings.

Speaking at the Asian Financial Forum in January, Vista Equity Partners founder Robert Smith noted that insurtech investment has remained robust during COVID-19 because insurance companies have recognized the need to go digital but often require a partner to achieve the transformation.

“Years ago, a lot of investments were done to reduce expenses and back-office operations, but that has changed,” Smith said. “Now they are looking to accelerate investment in sales, claims, and bringing out superior products and services to capture more market share.”

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• South Asia
• Financials
• Expansion
• India
• Jungle Ventures
• Financial Services
• insurance
• covid-19