Insurtech startup Qoala bags US$13.5m in Series A round

SOUTH-EAST Asian insurtech startup Qoala has raised US$13.5 million in its Series A funding round led by Centauri Fund, it said on Tuesday.

Centauri is a joint venture between funds from South Korea's Kookmin Bank and Telkom Indonesia. 

New investors in the round included Sequoia India, Flourish Ventures, Kookmin Bank Investments, Mirae Asset Venture Investment and Mirae Asset Sekuritas.

The round also pulled in participation from existing investors MassMutual Ventures Southeast Asia, MDI Ventures, Surge, SeedPlus and Bank Central Asia's Central Capital Ventura.

Jakarta-based Qoala, which aims to make submitting insurance claims "as simple as ordering a pizza", digitises insurers and insurance intermediaries and improves customer experience.

The startup has partnered with large-scale platform partners to increase awareness about insurance among consumers in the country, which has low insurance penetration. 

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It is also working to get offline insurance channels - which account for 99 per cent of insurance premiums in Indonesia - onto its app for agents and brokers.

Its platform lets users submit parametric claims, offers them personalised products, and helps insurers reduce costs and risk through digital fraud detection. Users can submit their claims by snapping a photo of their documents. Claims are paid in a day.

Qoala currently processes over two million insurance policies per month. It is supported by over 20 local and global insurers, including Tokio Marine and Great Eastern, and counts Investree, PegiPegi, RedBus and MAP Group among its customers.

It has also inked partnerships with prominent Indonesian brands Grabkois, JD.ID, and Shopee and Tokopedia.

Qoala co-founder Tommy Martin said the startup will use the funding to invest further in its technology, people and brand. It is planning to double its head count to 300 staff over the next year.

"During the present crisis we are seeing an increased demand for innovative and scalable services to support the (insurance) industry as physical-contact restrictions are impacting traditional offline sales of insurance," he added.

He said Qoala has accelerated its new Covid-19 offerings for consumers and micro businesses, as well as for small and medium-sized enterprises across Indonesia to provide payouts to those affected by the pandemic.

This includes those ineligible for regular insurance plans, as their treatment has either been partially or fully subsidised by the government.

It will roll out these Covid-19 offerings on a larger scale within the next four weeks, he added.

Centauri Fund's managing partner Kenneth Li said the fund saw "immense potential for the insurance sector to take off in Indonesia through innovative propositions", given its low gross written premium to gross domestic product ratio, and a growing middle class in need of greater financial security.

Sequoia Capital (India) Singapore principal Pieter Kemps said Qoala's proposition of lowering the barrier to insurance adoption with "simple, affordable solutions that can be accessed with little to no friction" was "something that was missing in Indonesia so far".