Ex-Lazada execs’ insurance marketplace Lifepal fetches $9m in funding

Indonesian digital direct-to-consumer (D2C) insurance marketplace Lifepal raised an oversubscribed $9m Series A funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $12m.

The funding round was led by ProBatus Capital with participation from Cathay Innovation, Insignia Ventures Partners, ATM Capital and Hustle Fund.

Lifepal will use the new financing to improve its product and customer experience.

The firm was founded in 2019 by former Lazada executives Giacomo Ficari and Nicolo Robba with the vision of making financial protection accessible to everyone, as a one-stop platform offering over 300 policies across health, life, automotive, property, and travel.

In a country where 270 million people still rely on outdated traditional agents for their insurance needs, the company aims to capitalise on technology where customers can easily compare, save and claim insurance policies online. Traditional insurance agents have been slow to innovate to meet the needs of the new digital customer who demands transparency, convenience, and access to a large selection of products. According to Munich Re Economic Research, Indonesia is one of the fastest-growing insurance markets globally, with property-casualty insurance and life insurance expected to grow 7.8% and 9.2% every year. With four million monthly visitors, Lifepal claims to be the largest insurance marketplace in the country.

By leveraging data from its financial content and community platform, Lifepal can provide accurate recommendations to consumers by matching them with the right product and customer support representative. In addition, being a direct-to-consumer distributor enables Lifepal to own the relationship with the customer across the long customer-lifetime-value typical of the insurance industry with claim support, renewals, and cross-selling. This has led to twelvefold year-over-year expansion, growing 20% month-over-month, with incredibly capital-efficient unit economics.

Lifepal has more than 50 insurance partners which include some of the region’s largest players.

Ficari said, “During the pandemic, we experienced a strong increase in demand due to heightened awareness of health risks combined with the availability of our online platform during a time when in-person visits were avoided by most people.

“Lifepal is addressing the evolving needs of the modern consumer by reducing the pain points associated with traditional agents with a full digitalization of the value chain for a superior customer experience. We have entered the market at an exciting time: consumer behaviours are shifting online and we have the rare opportunity to continue to scale our traffic and branding to become the dominant online destination for consumers for the years to come.”

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