RiskGenius announces Series B, partnerships with trio of world’s largest insurance carriers
July 15, 2019 | Startland News Staff
Customers are pushing for the growth of RiskGenius, a top Kansas City startup providing software-based natural language processing tools for improved quality and accuracy in the insurance industry, said CEO Chris Cheatham.
RiskGenius announced Monday an undisclosed Series B round led by Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd., doing business as HSCM Bermuda. The financing round also included participation from RiskGenius’ existing investors as well as new players from Hearst Ventures and FM Global.
RiskGenius is on a mission to help carriers and brokers deliver the right coverage impossibly fast. Launched in 2015, RiskGenius applies machine learning to insurance policies, which enables insurance professionals to dramatically enhance the consistency of coverage they offer clients and deliver it to them faster than ever before possible.
Click here to read why RiskGenius was named one of Startland’s Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2019.
“We are excited to partner with RiskGenius and help the company deliver on its value proposition of improving coverage accuracy and increasing underwriting efficiency for insurance clients,” said Andrew Sagon, HSCM Bermuda vice president. “We believe the company is uniquely positioned to drive standardization of insurance policy language across the industry.”
Click here to read more about RiskGenius’ Series A round, led by QBE Ventures in 2017.
It’s a new phase of growth for the Overland Park-based company, noted Cheatham, also announcing expanded partnerships with mega insurance carriers FM Global, Liberty Mutual, and Everest Insurance. (The latter of which referred RiskGenius to HSCM Bermuda, he said, calling the Everest innovation team “among the most forward-thinking innovators in the industry.”)
“FM Global also inquired about investment opportunities after testing our software,” Cheatham said. “Just like our previous round with QBE Insurance, our growth and investment opportunities are being created by our insurance customers.”
Proceeds from the round are expected to allow RiskGenius to continue improving its software platform for commercial insurance carriers and brokers while initiating outbound marketing and sales to introduce new clients to its unique value proposition, Cheatham said.
RiskGenius’ newest client, Liberty Mutual, will be initially utilizing the company’s software to enable data collection and analytics across hundreds of commercial insurance policies, he added.
The company — one of Startland’s Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2019 — also announced Monday the appointment of Sean Mollet as chief technology officer.
Mollet has a history of successfully leading software development organizations, said Cheatham. Most recently, Mollet served as head of software at APR, an automotive performance company, which was acquired by Driven Performance Brands in 2017.
He will lead the RiskGenius software and data science teams, which are expected to double in size by the end of the year.
“As a software-based business, Sean’s role as chief technology officer is critical to our success,” said Cheatham. “We are excited to welcome him to the RiskGenius team and expect that his prior experience in enterprise architecture and building world-beating hardware and software teams for multiple successful technology companies will play a crucial role in the continued growth and expansion of RiskGenius.”
RiskGenius’ previous Series A round with QBE Ventures saw the investment arm of client QBE Insurance help deploy RiskGenius across North America. The company is now evaluating expansion opportunities in Europe, Cheatham said.
RiskGenius
Featured Business
2019 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Meet the leaders driving Black & Veatch’s entrepreneurial revival
In June, Kansas City construction giant Black & Veatch kicked off an effort to accelerate new, innovative ideas by adopting a concept common among startups. The Overland Park-based corporation launched the B&V Growth Accelerator, which hopes to challenge the global firm’s traditional methods of generating and launching ideas. Black & Veatch — which works with…
One Kansas City startup survives national Kauffman contest
After about a month of public deliberation, the 1 in a Million pitch competition has narrowed participating startups down to a top five — and one hails from Kansas City. Although five area companies advanced to the top 40, The Grooming Project is last startup standing from Kansas City. A panel of Kauffman fellows will…
Not in Kansas anymore: Mycroft opens Kansas City, Silicon Valley offices
Editor’s note: This content is sponsored by LaunchKC but independently produced by Startland News. After a recent seed round that was topped off with a $50,000 LaunchKC grant, artificial intelligence startup Mycroft is moving from Lawrence to the City of Fountains. Mycroft — which developed an open-source, artificial intelligence device similar to Amazon Echo — not…
AOL founder Steve Case says innovators must become policy savvy
Get familiar with public policy or your company will get left behind. That was the forward-looking message that AOL founder Steve Case had for a group of about 200 investors and entrepreneurs at the 2016 Kauffman Fellows summit in Kansas City. Now the CEO of Revolution, Case argued that investors, entrepreneurs and policymakers will have…