San Francisco, CA – February 8, 2013 – CoverHound, an insurance startup that is redefining how people shop for and manage their insurance, today announced that it has raised a $4.5 million Series A round of funding. The new round, led by RRE Ventures with additional participation from Bullpen Capital and existing investor Blumberg Capital, brings the company’s total funding to date to $6.5 million.
“Insurance is a massive industry that’s seen far too little innovation and is still terribly inefficient. CoverHound empowers consumers for the first time to make informed auto and home insurance buying decisions, rather than simply relying on the last commercial they saw on TV,” said Tom Loverro, principal at RRE Ventures. “RRE is excited to be part of their growth in 2013 and beyond.”
CoverHound is a new type of insurance provider. The company’s innovative technology not only makes it easy to compare multiple different policies, but CoverHound policyholders can buy and manage directly through the platform, radically simplifying the purchasing and servicing process for consumers.
CoverHound’s web and mobile applications bring unprecedented levels of transparency, choice of products and customer service. Unlike most traditional insurance providers, CoverHound provides ongoing service to its policyholders that monitors and adapts their policy as their needs change, ensuring best fit and pricing each and every day.
The company will use the new funds to significantly grow its team and develop new products that better address the needs of smart insurance shoppers. They will continue to invest in tools that allow select, complementary brands to leverage CoverHound’s technology to power their own insurance channels.
“We’ve spent the past year building an insanely complex comparison engine that takes just seconds to sift through tens of thousands of different carrier and coverage combinations to find you the best value. But we’re just getting started,” said Basil Enan, CoverHound’s founder and chief executive officer. “Our dream is to become the brand that consumers trust for all of their insurance needs.”
CoverHound Funding and Momentum
The new round was led by investors including Tom Loverro from RRE Ventures, Richard Melmon from Bullpen Capital, Jon Soberg from Blumberg Capital and angel investor, Ed Ojdana, founder of FreeCreditReport.com and former CEO of Experian Interactive. Together the investors contributed an additional $4.5 million and growing CoverHound’s total funding amount to $6.5 million.
Since the launch of its first product, an online auto insurance comparison shopping engine, at Finovate in May 2012, CoverHound has experienced tremendous growth - and that growth is accelerating with the number of policies sold through the platform growing by over 60% a month. Over the next several months the company will be rounding out support for all of its personal insurance products in all U.S. markets.
About CoverHound
Basil Enan founded CoverHound in May of 2010 after having spent seven years in the insurance industry. Most recently, as Vice President of Business Development for InsWeb, one of the earliest pioneers in the online insurance space.
Based in San Francisco, the company also has a team of licensed insurance advisors based in Westlake Village, CA who provide personalized advice, sell insurance, and provide ongoing service over the phone.
The CoverHound team is comprised of insurance veterans from companies like InsWeb, Unitrin Direct and State Farm. A Winter 2011 AngelPad graduate, CoverHound received seed funding from Blumberg Capital in June 2011. For more information, or to try the service, please visit CoverHound.com. Companies looking for more info on CoverHound’s partner tools including its insurance estimate API can reach out to api@coverhound.com.
About RRE Ventures
RRE Ventures is an early-stage venture capital firm headquartered in New York City. Since our founding in 1994 we have sought out and partnered with extraordinary entrepreneurs who seek to disrupt and transform industries.
As a long-term lead investor, we are active strategic, operational and financial partners with the companies we finance. RRE brings to bear a highly distinctive network of relationships across multiple industries and geographies, relationships we deploy strategically on behalf of the companies in which we invest. RRE manages over a billion dollars of capital across five funds and is structured to enable us to invest in early stage companies while remaining active and participatory throughout the financing life of a venture.
About Bullpen Capital
Bullpen Capital is an early-stage venture capital fund that helps companies who have shown product-market fit overcome the Series A Crunch. By extending the lean finance model beyond the seed round, Bullpen can provide active, hands-on support throughout a company’s early, most critical stages of growth. Bullpen was formed by three operating executives who have started over a dozen venture-backed companies and have advised or funded over 50 venture-backed companies.
