KKR-Led Funding Round Gives $100 Million to Startup Policygenius

Online insurance startup Policygenius raised $100 million from investors including KKR & Co. and venture capital operations backed by Axa SA, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Transamerica.

The company has annual revenue of $60 million, which is 10 times higher than in 2017, when it last completed a round of fundraising, Policygenius said in a statement Thursday announcing its Series D funding. Policygenius, an online marketplace for insurance, said it plans to use the money for hiring and adding products.

Investors have been pouring money into insurance-related startups in recent years, with about $4.36 billion of funds being deployed into insurtech companies in the first nine months of 2019, according to a report from Willis Towers Watson Plc. Outside investors are focusing more on later-stage financing rounds, according to Deloitte.

Policygenius, founded in 2014, has been expanding its product offerings and last year added a second headquarters, in Durham, North Carolina, to one in New York. Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Fitzgerald said the company isn’t discussing an exit path through an initial public offering or sale, and is focused on continued expansion.

“The company has reached an inflection point where it made sense to throw the proverbial fuel on the fire,” Fitzgerald, a Policygenius co-founder, said in a phone interview. The Series D funding will “really accelerate the very strong growth we were already seeing over the last three years.”

With the new investment, KKR’s Allan Jean-Baptiste and Jake Heller will join the Policygenius board. The startup declined to disclosure valuation figures. There are at least 10 insurtech companies, including Lemonade and Hippo, that are considered unicorns, or startups valued at more than $1 billion, according to Willis Towers Watson, which didn’t place a value on Policygenius.