RiskGenius announces Series B, partnerships with trio of world’s largest insurance carriers

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.

“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.

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