American surtech Accel has raised US$4 million in seed funding led by Google’s Gradient Ventures as it seeks to become the ‘Plaid of Insurance‘.
US insuretech Excel has raised US$4 million in seed funding as it aims to become the “Plaid for Insurance”.
The round is being led by Google’s AI-focused venture funding arm Gradient Ventures. It also includes investment from Y Combinator, of which Axel is an alum, as well as members of the founding team of Plaid – the company they are trying to emulate. The round also saw participation from Soma Capital, Contrari Capital, Rebel Fund and BLH Ventures.
The insuretech startup provides a bridge between insurance lines and their parallel industries through a universal API for insurance data, enabling customers to make business decisions more quickly. Like Plaid, it allows users to link their insurance accounts with trusted companies in seconds, providing the catalyst needed to transition the insurance industry away from legacy systems and mindsets.
Axel will use the money to grow its team, strengthen its carrier network and expand into new markets with the aim of being able to serve new customers. It says the challenge of “building a robust and accurate platform around unstructured data” is an important one, but they are excited to pursue it.
Excel is ‘democratizing access to insurance data’
Since launching less than a year ago, Axel has already expanded its carrier network to hundreds of insurance carriers. It supports a range of policy information including term, insured, premium, third party and more. And with many high-risk organizations such as car rental companies and gig services struggling to properly assess and price their risk levels, the company is optimistic about the size of the market opportunity in front of it.
Axel is a 2022 graduate from Y Combinator which was founded by CEO Cameron Duncan, CTO Nihar Parikh and COO Armaan Sikand. CEO Duncan has experience as head of product within the automotive industry at Clutch, a startup aiming to change how consumers access and own vehicles that was eventually purchased by Cox Automotive. Sikand Monitor is a former Engagement Manager at Deloitte, while CTO Parikh is a former Senior Associate at KPMG and Product Lead for App Development Platforms.
“As founders, fundraising in this environment is a competitive process,” the three founders of Accel said in a joint statement. “We were fortunate to not only find investors quickly, but people with deep technical and market expertise. We are excited to work with Gradient and the rest of our new investors as we begin our next chapter ”
Wen-Wen Lam, Partner at Gradient Ventures, says: “Axel’s innovative approach to insurance and commitment to a personalized customer experience have already demonstrated early traction and validated their ability to make a significant impact in the market We look forward to supporting the team and their mission to democratize access to insurance data.