Insurtech Briza raises $8m funding for commercial insurance API platform

Briza, a US-based insurtech aiming to solve the "distribution problem" in commercial insurance, has raised $8 million in its Series A funding round, bringing its total financing to date to $11 million.

The start-up's $3 million seed round in March 2020 was led by a group of angel investors, including the non-executive chairman of Third Point Re Sid Sankaran, former treasurer of AIG Alon Neches, former CEO of Swiss Re Canada Sharon Ludlow, and founder and CEO of Rocketplace Louis Beryl, in addition to Briza chair and FreshBooks founder and executive chair Mike McDerment.

Through its commercial insurance-as-a-service API platform, Briza seeks to increase the supply of insurance markets available to retailers, wholesalers, and developers. It wants to aggregate carrier quote, bind, and payment capabilities via one unified API.

“Briza’s API gives developers a whole marketplace of appetites for small commercial insurance,” said Ben Munro, co-founder and CEO of Briza.

Rishi Sharma, CTO at Briza, further explained that “by easily translating the quoting, binding, and payment experience, Briza seeks to allow insurance companies rapid, low-cost functionality into adjacent platforms, and likewise enable any brand or merchant to integrate innovative risk and protection services into their digital storefront.”

“The emerging ‘embedded finance’ movement offers one of the most compelling digital growth opportunities to legacy financial institutions such as insurance agents and carriers,” Sharma added.

Ian Martin-Katz, partner at Investment Group of Santa Barbara, commented: “Briza’s platform can empower existing channels of commercial insurance distribution and unlock new ones. We’re thrilled to support Briza as it delivers value to its partners in the commercial insurance ecosystem, including brokers, wholesalers, carriers and software developers.”

Tony Wang, managing partner at 500 Startups, said: “Briza shows the power of bringing simplicity to a once tedious process by laying the foundation to digitize the purchase of commercial insurance. This is a very complex undertaking, but we are very excited by the progress Ben and his team have made in such a short period of time.”

The insurtech stated that it has agreements in place with 11 commercial insurers, including Liberty Mutual, Berkshire Hathaway Guard, CNA, Hiscox, AmTrust, Markel, EMPLOYERS, Crum & Forster, and Acuity, along with digital-enabled providers such as Coalition and Coterie.

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