Chatbots to wedding insurance: Meet the four premium InsurTech startups selected for KC’s bcp tech accelerator
September 23, 2021 | Channa Steinmetz and Tommy Felts
Four of the industry’s most-promising seed stage startups — an international mix of insurtech solutions — are expected to be the beneficiaries of Kansas City’s extensive insurance expertise, explained Nathan Kurtz, announcing the second cohort of the LaunchKC-backed bcp tech InsurTech accelerator.
Natan Kurtz, Brush Creek Partners, and Jim Erickson, Economic Development Council of Kansas City Missouri
“We are very insurance focused,” said Kurtz, COO of Brush Creek Partners (bcp). “And there’s a long history of insurance in Kansas City from the carrier side, from the agency side. It’s a huge strength of our community.”
“To quote Peter Drucker, ‘The purpose of a business is to create a customer,’” he continued during an in-person announcement event Wednesday at Boulevard Brewery. “So we want to help this year’s cohort get in front of as many customers as possible. This is a very niche focus, but who else can actually help them figure out ‘Am I actually solving a problem that my customers need help with?’”
The 60-day accelerator began Monday in Kansas City (a change from the inaugural 2020 cohort, which saw six companies participate in the program virtually), and is expected to culminate Nov. 10 with an in-person demo day in downtown KC. Companies from both cohorts are anticipated to participate in the event.
“Our whole purpose [with the accelerator] is to align founders with mentors from the community, sponsors who can help make connections, and others who can help these founders to say, ‘Hey, we’re on the right track’ or ‘We’re going to pivot a little bit.’ Whatever it takes to get to the next stage,” Kurtz told the crowd.
The four companies include:
- MotionsCloud (Lex Tan), Germany — Helps insurance carriers, brokers and agencies to streamline and automate the inspection process, powered by computer vision and augmented reality technologies; helps companies to cut inspection time and costs by 75 percent. Recently closed a $2 million round.
- Insurmi (Sonny Patel), Phoenix, Arizona — Creator of Violet, an AI chatbot that helps insurance providers, carriers, agencies and brokers automate sales claims and customer service. Raising a seed round this fall.
- Relay Platform (Anne Hasenstab), Portland, Oregon — SaaS-based submission, quote and proposal management system, with highly customized solutions for clients up to complex risk. Closed a seed round led by Drive Capital in Columbus in April.
- JAUNTIN’ (David Robinson), Toronto, Canada — Enables on-demand and embedded insurance, allowing carriers and brokers to intercept customers during the purchase path of third party platforms and websites — think niche markets like special event insurance dealing with venues and weddings. Currently raising a round.
Check out a brief photo gallery from Wednesday’s announcement event, then keep reading.
Stu Ludlow, co-founder of RFP360 (exited), and Chris Cheatham, founder of Risk Genius (exited)
The bcp program is the first of four accelerators expected to welcome cohorts in partnership with LaunchKC over the next year.
“Kansas City is entrepreneurial at its core,” Tommy Wilson, who oversees business attraction for LaunchKC, told Startland News previously. “Without the public and private commitment we’ve seen over the years to programs like this, we wouldn’t be nearly as competitive as we are on a national scale.”
Founded as a grants competition nearly seven years ago, LaunchKC formally announced in fall 2020 a restructuring of its programming as an accelerator platform under the leadership of Keystone Labs — an outgrowth of the Keystone innovation district effort championed by Kevin McGinnis.
Click here to learn more about the evolution of LaunchKC and its impact in Kansas City.
Since 2019, LaunchKC — a joint initiative of the Downtown Council and the Economic Development Corporation of Kansas City, Missouri — has aided the launch of two other accelerator programs.
The Launch Health accelerator with Nueterra Capital hosted its first cohort in the fall of 2019. Black & Veatch’s IgniteX COVID-19 Response Accelerator followed in spring 2020 after debuting a CleanTech focused accelerator in spring 2019.
This story is possible thanks to support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works together with communities in education and entrepreneurship to create uncommon solutions and empower people to shape their futures and be successful.
For more information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect at www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn
Featured Business
2021 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Survivor, innovator Kim Gandy rewards patients for sticking to treatments
In her 20 years working as a transplantation clinician, Kim Gandy found it baffling that a seemingly simple problem had such a difficult time finding a solution. Transplant patients consistently struggled to adhere to their health regimens, resulting not only in significant costs for care providers but also death. “We were literally losing patients,” Gandy…
Kansas City to host national student entrepreneur competition
Kansas City will soon host a national competition for student entrepreneurs. Set for March 6 and 7 at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards will bring its top 25 national finalists to Kansas City. To qualify, student entrepreneurs must be the primary operator of a business less than six years old…
Area experts dive into uncertainty and hope for immigrant entrepreneurship
Now more than ever, it’s important for the community to come together to gain new perspectives. That notion was a driving force behind the February Innovation Exchange in which Startland News dove into the subject of immigration and entrepreneurship. Hosted in partnership with Think Big, the event welcomed a researcher and a policy expert from…
Analysis from binge watching six-months of 1 Million Cups KC
Editor’s note: The opinions expressed in this commentary are the author’s alone. Every Wednesday morning in over 100 communities nationwide, two entrepreneurs present a six-minute profile of their companies to a diverse audience, followed by 20 minutes of open Q&A. Last July, I binge-watched 1 Million Cups Kansas City’s 51 presentations from January 1 to…