PolicyBazaar Gets $152 Mn in 1st Tranche of Series F led by SoftBank Vision Fund

Gurgaon-based ETechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt. Ltd. ("Policybazaar Group"), the parent of online portals - PolicyBazaar and PaisaBazaar, has secured about $152 million (Rs 1,059.4 crore) in the first tranche of its Series F funding round, led by Japan’s SoftBank Vision Fund, according to the company’s filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) sourced by paper.vc.

The capital infusion also saw participation from InfoEdge via its subsidiary Diphda Internet Services, private equity firm True North, and Startup Holding. SVF India Holdings (Cayman) Limited (Soft Bank), a wholly owned subsidiary of SoftBank Vision Fund L.P. has invested about $68 million (Rs 473.27 crore) by subscribing to 10,371 Series F cumulative compulsory convertible preference shares (CCCPS) and five equity shares worth Rs 4,56,345 each of EtechAces.

Diphda Internet Services has injected about $59.3 million (Rs 413.59 crore) by subscribing to 9,059 Series F CCCPS and four equity shares, while True North has purchased 3,775 CCCPS and one equity share for an investment of $24.8 million (Rs 172.27 crore) in the company. Last year in June, the PolicyBazaar parent had announced a fundraise of over $200 million in Series F round.

In July, Singapore government-backed investment firm Temasek and Info Edge (India) Ltd co-invested $27.6 million (Rs 190.5 crore) in EtechAces. The company also counts New York investment firm Tiger Global Management, PremjiInvest of Wipro's Azim Premzi, Chiratae Ventures and Inventus Capital Partners among its investors.

Founded in 2008, by Alok Bansal and Yashish Dahiya, Poicybazaar group has so far raised a total of about $347 Mn in funding over seven rounds including the latest one.

Last year the company had launched healthtech platform, docprime.com, and also forayed into the UAE market, with the launch of its new venture, Policybazaar.ae, an online financial products marketplace, that would list insurance and lending products on its platform.

Notably, Paisabazaar, an online marketplace for all lending and investment products, is a venture spun out of Policybazaar. Policybazaar has till raised about $150 million in six separate funding rounds.

Source - DealStreetAsia

Policybazaar and Paisabazaar Forays into UAE; Appoints Neeraj Gupta as CEO of Policybazaar.ae

Gurgaon-based ETechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt. Ltd. (“Policybazaar Group”), the parent company of India’s leading insurtech brand, Policybazaar.com and India’s leading lending marketplace, Paisabazaar.com and newly launched healthtech platform, docprime.com, has now forayed into the UAE market, with the launch of its new venture, Policybazaar.ae, an online financial products marketplace, that would list insurance and lending products on its platform, to begin with.

With Policybazaar.ae, it marks Policybazaar Group's first overseas venture as an online financial products marketplace, aimed at becoming a one-stop shop for consumers personal finance needs in the UAE market. Policybazaar.ae currently partners with more than 10 partners across lending and insurance categories with 50+ products on offer.

The international expansion marks a milestone moment in the decade-old journey of Policybazaar Group that has shortlisted Dubai to serve as a hub for the UAE operations. The group has appointed Neeraj Gupta as the CEO for its new venture, Policybazaar.ae, in an elevation from his earlier role at the group of leading the motor insurance business for the flagship brand, Policybazaar.com.

The new international set up was initiated in March earlier this year, and has sold over 2,000 policies and underwritten premium worth INR 6 crore (AED 3 million) through its partnership with 10+ insurance partners in the region, during its beta phase.

Commenting on the launch, Yashish Dahiya, Co-founder & CEO, Policybazaar Group, said, “We have been at the forefront of initiating the change in the way India consumes financial products, and the foray into the international market is a momentous occasion for us. Our expansion into the UAE market is based on the same philosophy of developing a strong tech-based platform that makes consumers the king in their ability to choose a gamut of financial products."

[caption id="attachment_126306" align="alignright" width="273"] Neeraj Gupta, CEO, Policybazaar.ae[/caption]Delighted with the official launch of operations, Neeraj Gupta, CEO, Policybazaar.ae, said, "We are very confident of replicating our success of the India market in this region. The initial business numbers have been very encouraging, and above of what our expectations were. We plan to further build on this start of our beta phase, by creating a strong product line for our consumers, as our platform is now fairly stable and evolved."

With Policybazaar.ae, PolicyBazaar Group intends to become a one-stop shop for consumer's personal finance needs in the UAE region. Over the next three years, Policybazaar.ae is looking to build an extensive network of local banking and insurance partners, and underwrite premium worth INR 500 crore (AED 250 million) from the region.

The initial products listed on the platform include motor insurance, travel insurance and soon will have life insurance and lending products added to its product line.

ETechAces is the parent company that holds India’s leading insurtech brand, PolicyBazaar.com, India’s leading lending marketplace, PaisaBazaar.com and newly launched health tech platform, docprime.com. The company has backing from a host of investors including the likes of Softbank, Temasek, Tiger Global Management, True North, InfoEdge (Naukri.com), Premji Invest, besides investments from other PE funds and family offices.

The group's flagship brand, PolicyBazaar.com started with a purpose to educate people on insurance products and has had a significant influence on how insurance is bought in India. It has helped in driving penetration of pure life insurance, health insurance, and such products which were barely bought earlier.

From receiving traffic of 180,000 visitors in 2008, PolicyBazaar.com has come a long way and today hosts over 100 million visitors yearly and records sale of nearly 300,000 transactions a month. Currently, PolicyBazaar.com accounts for nearly 25% of India’s life cover, and over 7% of India’s retail health business. It accounts for roughly half of all internet based insurance purchase in the country and is more than doubling annually.

In 2014, Policybazaar group started PaisaBazaar.com, an online financial marketplace for investment and lending products. Today, Paisabazaar.com is India’s largest online financial marketplace for loans and credit cards. It currently partners with more than 75 partners across lending and investment categories with 300+ products on offer. Since its inception in early 2014, the company has marked a staggering growth, and today disburses loans worth Rs. 360 crore in a month to more than 450 cities and towns.

We have received several accolades in India and globally. The most noteworthy being recognized as India’s top and world’s leading “Fin Tech Innovator” by the Global consultancy firm, KPMG and venture capital fund, H2 Ventures for 2015 & 2016. In fact, the brand has won a range of awards in the last couple of years, many of them consecutively. These include The Financial Express “Best Fintech Marketplace”, Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) Digital India Award for “Best Financial Website”, “Most Innovating Insurance Service”, IDC Iconic Award for “Tech Implementation leading to Operational Excellence”, to name a few.

[Source - Newsvoir]

Policybazaar and Paisabazaar Forays into UAE; Appoints Neeraj Gupta as CEO of Policybazaar.ae

Gurgaon-based ETechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt. Ltd. (“Policybazaar Group”), the parent company of India’s leading insurtech brand, Policybazaar.com and India’s leading lending marketplace, Paisabazaar.com and newly launched healthtech platform, docprime.com, has now forayed into the UAE market, with the launch of its new venture, Policybazaar.ae, an online financial products marketplace, that would list insurance and lending products on its platform, to begin with.

With Policybazaar.ae, it marks Policybazaar Group's first overseas venture as an online financial products marketplace, aimed at becoming a one-stop shop for consumers personal finance needs in the UAE market. Policybazaar.ae currently partners with more than 10 partners across lending and insurance categories with 50+ products on offer.

The international expansion marks a milestone moment in the decade-old journey of Policybazaar Group that has shortlisted Dubai to serve as a hub for the UAE operations. The group has appointed Neeraj Gupta as the CEO for its new venture, Policybazaar.ae, in an elevation from his earlier role at the group of leading the motor insurance business for the flagship brand, Policybazaar.com.

The new international set up was initiated in March earlier this year, and has sold over 2,000 policies and underwritten premium worth INR 6 crore (AED 3 million) through its partnership with 10+ insurance partners in the region, during its beta phase.

Commenting on the launch, Yashish Dahiya, Co-founder & CEO, Policybazaar Group, said, “We have been at the forefront of initiating the change in the way India consumes financial products, and the foray into the international market is a momentous occasion for us. Our expansion into the UAE market is based on the same philosophy of developing a strong tech-based platform that makes consumers the king in their ability to choose a gamut of financial products."

[caption id="attachment_126306" align="alignright" width="273"] Neeraj Gupta, CEO, Policybazaar.ae[/caption]Delighted with the official launch of operations, Neeraj Gupta, CEO, Policybazaar.ae, said, "We are very confident of replicating our success of the India market in this region. The initial business numbers have been very encouraging, and above of what our expectations were. We plan to further build on this start of our beta phase, by creating a strong product line for our consumers, as our platform is now fairly stable and evolved."

With Policybazaar.ae, PolicyBazaar Group intends to become a one-stop shop for consumer's personal finance needs in the UAE region. Over the next three years, Policybazaar.ae is looking to build an extensive network of local banking and insurance partners, and underwrite premium worth INR 500 crore (AED 250 million) from the region.

The initial products listed on the platform include motor insurance, travel insurance and soon will have life insurance and lending products added to its product line.

ETechAces is the parent company that holds India’s leading insurtech brand, PolicyBazaar.com, India’s leading lending marketplace, PaisaBazaar.com and newly launched health tech platform, docprime.com. The company has backing from a host of investors including the likes of Softbank, Temasek, Tiger Global Management, True North, InfoEdge (Naukri.com), Premji Invest, besides investments from other PE funds and family offices.

The group's flagship brand, PolicyBazaar.com started with a purpose to educate people on insurance products and has had a significant influence on how insurance is bought in India. It has helped in driving penetration of pure life insurance, health insurance, and such products which were barely bought earlier.

From receiving traffic of 180,000 visitors in 2008, PolicyBazaar.com has come a long way and today hosts over 100 million visitors yearly and records sale of nearly 300,000 transactions a month. Currently, PolicyBazaar.com accounts for nearly 25% of India’s life cover, and over 7% of India’s retail health business. It accounts for roughly half of all internet based insurance purchase in the country and is more than doubling annually.

In 2014, Policybazaar group started PaisaBazaar.com, an online financial marketplace for investment and lending products. Today, Paisabazaar.com is India’s largest online financial marketplace for loans and credit cards. It currently partners with more than 75 partners across lending and investment categories with 300+ products on offer. Since its inception in early 2014, the company has marked a staggering growth, and today disburses loans worth Rs. 360 crore in a month to more than 450 cities and towns.

We have received several accolades in India and globally. The most noteworthy being recognized as India’s top and world’s leading “Fin Tech Innovator” by the Global consultancy firm, KPMG and venture capital fund, H2 Ventures for 2015 & 2016. In fact, the brand has won a range of awards in the last couple of years, many of them consecutively. These include The Financial Express “Best Fintech Marketplace”, Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) Digital India Award for “Best Financial Website”, “Most Innovating Insurance Service”, IDC Iconic Award for “Tech Implementation leading to Operational Excellence”, to name a few.

[Source - Newsvoir]

Policybazaar.com Launches Self Video Cashless Claims Feature for Motor Insurance

India's leading insurtech brand Policybazaar.com has launched a new version of self-video cashless claims feature on its app for easy and faster claims processing & settlement, announced the company in a press release.

Public Sector insurers - New India Assurance and United India Insurance, have been the first ones to adopt the new feature and have joined hands with largest insurance website and comparison portal, PolicyBazaar.com, to offer consumers’ settlement of accidental claims through this feature using the Policybazaar.com app.

The new feature allows consumers to overcome the hassle of physical inspection for claims and allows them to self-upload a video through the app for evaluation of damages on a vehicle, making the entire inspection process a matter of minutes and the approval process a matter of few hours.

[caption id="attachment_126102" align="aligncenter" width="635"]Self Video Cashless Claim of Policybazaar.com[/caption]

With the human element of in-person inspection done away with and process largely automated, it significantly improves on the efficiency of the process, with the intent being to improve the overall consumer experience around the settlement of claims, a pain point for the industry in the past.

Speaking about how the newly launched feature will benefit the consumer, Mr. Yashish Dahiya, Co-founder & CEO, Policybazaar.com said, “Customer-centricity is ingrained in the DNA of our organization's ethos. Continuing on our journey to make insurance a seamless experience we have launched this new PB Claims feature. The app is expected to reduce the timeline of approval/non-repair timelines from two days to two hours.”

In India, it is estimated that for every 100 policies, there are roughly about 15 of those that go for claims, and these require physical inspection of the vehicle and documentation, which takes anywhere between two to three working days.

Commenting on the new initiative, Mr. K B Vijay Srinivas, CMD (Joint in Charge) at United India Insurance, said, "We are a leading non-life insurer which keeps abreast of the latest technology trends with the objective of leveraging them to enhance our customer service levels. We at United India are very happy to pioneer a video app exclusively developed for motor vehicle damage claims. We laud the first of its kind customer-friendly initiative of Policybazaar.com in this regard. This initiative will have the twin benefits of fast turnaround times in claims settlement and making life easy for the customer."

The feature also provides with real-time updates to customers on the progress of their claims, which can be tracked through ‘my account’ section on the Policybazaar.com website or App.

To further strengthen the process, the company is also running a pilot on Artifical Intelligence (AI) being used to assess the estimate of the damage and quotation of repairs, which was earlier being provided only by the garage.

For the uninitiated, the new version builds on the first version that helped consumers to renew lapsed motor insurance by using the self-inspection video feature. The first version has won industry accolades for making renewal a matter a few hours for lapsed cases and reducing cost on the whole process.

[Top Image - jobbuzz.timesjobs.com]

Policybazaar.com Launches Self Video Cashless Claims Feature for Motor Insurance

India's leading insurtech brand Policybazaar.com has launched a new version of self-video cashless claims feature on its app for easy and faster claims processing & settlement, announced the company in a press release.

Public Sector insurers - New India Assurance and United India Insurance, have been the first ones to adopt the new feature and have joined hands with largest insurance website and comparison portal, PolicyBazaar.com, to offer consumers’ settlement of accidental claims through this feature using the Policybazaar.com app.

The new feature allows consumers to overcome the hassle of physical inspection for claims and allows them to self-upload a video through the app for evaluation of damages on a vehicle, making the entire inspection process a matter of minutes and the approval process a matter of few hours.

[caption id="attachment_126102" align="aligncenter" width="635"]Self Video Cashless Claim of Policybazaar.com[/caption]

With the human element of in-person inspection done away with and process largely automated, it significantly improves on the efficiency of the process, with the intent being to improve the overall consumer experience around the settlement of claims, a pain point for the industry in the past.

Speaking about how the newly launched feature will benefit the consumer, Mr. Yashish Dahiya, Co-founder & CEO, Policybazaar.com said, “Customer-centricity is ingrained in the DNA of our organization's ethos. Continuing on our journey to make insurance a seamless experience we have launched this new PB Claims feature. The app is expected to reduce the timeline of approval/non-repair timelines from two days to two hours.”

In India, it is estimated that for every 100 policies, there are roughly about 15 of those that go for claims, and these require physical inspection of the vehicle and documentation, which takes anywhere between two to three working days.

Commenting on the new initiative, Mr. K B Vijay Srinivas, CMD (Joint in Charge) at United India Insurance, said, "We are a leading non-life insurer which keeps abreast of the latest technology trends with the objective of leveraging them to enhance our customer service levels. We at United India are very happy to pioneer a video app exclusively developed for motor vehicle damage claims. We laud the first of its kind customer-friendly initiative of Policybazaar.com in this regard. This initiative will have the twin benefits of fast turnaround times in claims settlement and making life easy for the customer."

The feature also provides with real-time updates to customers on the progress of their claims, which can be tracked through ‘my account’ section on the Policybazaar.com website or App.

To further strengthen the process, the company is also running a pilot on Artifical Intelligence (AI) being used to assess the estimate of the damage and quotation of repairs, which was earlier being provided only by the garage.

For the uninitiated, the new version builds on the first version that helped consumers to renew lapsed motor insurance by using the self-inspection video feature. The first version has won industry accolades for making renewal a matter a few hours for lapsed cases and reducing cost on the whole process.

[Top Image - jobbuzz.timesjobs.com]

Paisabazaar Raises ₹200 Crore from Its Parent Company

Paisabazaar, an online portal & mobile app for comparing financial products, has raised around ₹200 crore from its parent company EtechAces, which also runs insurance products aggregator Policybazaar.

Naveen Kukreja, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Paisabazaar, told BusinessLine that the funds will be used to scale up the lending business by tripling the loan amount from ₹360 crore every month last year to ₹1,000 crore per month in 2018.

The company will also invest a part of the amount in brand-building exercises to become a go-to platform for all financial products — excluding insurance, which is handled by its sister arm Policybazaar — and also invest in technology, data analytics and machine learning.

The above news was first reported in The Hindu Business Line.

Founded in early 2014 Naveen Kukreja, Paisabazaar is headquartered in Gurgaon and India's largest online destination for all kinds of loans, credit cards, and other financial products. Since its inception the company has marked a staggering growth in terms widening its customer base to almost half a million customers.

“We are quite optimistic about the growth of unsecured loans in the Indian market this year. We have a strong loan book in the business and personal loan — ₹260 crore from the total monthly loan disbursal of ₹360 crore.

“We expect this to grow further on the back of smartphone and internet penetration, and digitisation of the KYC process because of Aadhaar,” Kukreja said.

Notably, Paisabazaar is a venture spun out of Policybazaar, an online insurance products comparison site founded in 2008, and Policybazaar has till raised about $146 million in six separate funding rounds. The backers of the company includes Tiger Global, PremjiInvest, Steadview Capital and IDG Ventures, among others.