Curacel, an infrastructure provider operating across Africa, has raised $3m in seed funding to power the next generation of insurance experience in Africa.
The round saw participation from Tencent, AAF Management (invested in Sure, Flutterwave), Elefund (invested in Robinhood, Pie Insurance and Sure), Blue Point Capital Partners, Pioneer Fund, Olive Tree Capital and Y Combinator, as well as James Park (CEO of Fitbit), Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola (CEO of Flutterwave), Babs Ogundeyi (CEO of Kuda) and other strategic investors.
Top executives from Covergenius, Zopper and Pie Insurance will also join Curacel’s advisory board as part of the round.
According to Curacel, the combination of a fast-growing population, a rising middle class and increasing access to financial services across the continent means more Africans have the opportunity to experience a wider range of products and services. This comes with risks and insurance companies play a key role in helping to manage these.
However, Curacel said that with insurance penetration across the continent under 3%, many are taking these risks entirely themselves.
However, Curacel continued, the paper-based and time consuming technology that powers insurers’ processes is expensive and prone to fraud and waste. Africans insurers lose more than $12bn a year due to fraudulent and wasteful claims.
Curacel aims to make it easier for insurers to distribute their products, automate their claims processes and drive revenue growth by giving them easy-to-use technology solutions.
With Grow, Curacel’s embedded insurance product, more than 100 banks, FinTechs, logistics companies and other tech-enabled companies, including ALAT (Nigeria’s first digital bank), Providus, PalmPay, Float, etc and others are empowered to increase their recurring revenues by offering digital insurance products that are seamlessly embedded into their existing products and services, driving much-needed insurance penetration and customer loyalty.
Henry Masco, CEO and co-founder of Curacel, said, “We are bullish on the potential of the right technology in the right places to close the protection gap across Africa and emerging markets. It is an exciting time for us as we secure the capital to deliver the vision and onboard the people who have built these technologies at scale in more mature markets, and we are looking forward to delivering more technology solutions to drive up insurance inclusion.”
Last year, Sanlam, a non-banking financial services company based in Africa, partnered with insurer Allianz, to create a Pan-African insurance agent.
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