PayPal Ventures' latest investment is in an Indonesian startup that offers a personal insurance product that covers a variety of risks, including accidents, damaged phone screens, and ticket cancellations.
Qoala has secured $47 million in a new round co-led by PayPal Ventures and MassMutual Ventures, the five-year-old startup announced Wednesday. In addition to MUFG Innovation Partners and Omidyar Network, existing backers Flourish Ventures, Eurazeo, and AppWorks also participated in the Series C funding, bringing Qoala's total funding to more than $130 million since its inception.
Headquartered in Jakarta, Qoala is an insurance broker that works with top local insurance and e-commerce companies to provide personalized and affordable products to its customers. We sell insurance for cars, motorcycles, goods, personal injury, travel, and health, both on our website and app, and through offline contracts.
The startup also relies on a network of more than 60,000 employees, known as “agents” or marketers, to sell insurance, simplifying the claims process through image uploads and using machine learning. to detect fraud and expand services, benefiting both customers and insurers. Access to convenient and cost-effective insurance solutions.
The company says it processed more than 115,000 insurance claims and added 45,000 new customers last year. His Qoala, which counts Peak XV among its backers, operates in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam in addition to its home market of Indonesia.
Qoala said its gross written premiums have surged 2.5 times since 2022 and that it now processes up to 60% of all claims in-house, although it did not provide exact numbers.
Qoala co-founder and CEO Harshet Lunani said the latest funding “demonstrates market confidence” in the company's strategy. “Our mission to democratize insurance is unwavering, and with this new injection of capital, we are better poised than ever to drive innovation and impact lives and livelihoods. ,” he said in a prepared statement.
Qoala plans to use the new funding to explore strategic acquisitions and partnerships, as well as sprinkling AI across its channels.
“It's admirable to see what Qoala has accomplished in such a short period of time,” PayPal Ventures principal Alexandros Bottenbruch said in a statement. “By positioning ourselves as the solution of choice for both consumer-facing platforms and traditional agents, Qoala is providing consumers across Southeast Asia with much-needed tools to address persistent protection gaps. .”
PayPal Ventures is no stranger to Indonesia. In 2020, it also supported Gojek.