Briza start-up raises $3 million seed funding

Toronto-based insurance-as-a-service start-up seed financing total revealed

Mountain View, CA (Feb. 20, 2020) – Briza.io, the insurance-as-a-service API, has just closed another round of funding, bringing the organization’s total funding to USD $3 million (approx. CAD $4.98 million).

At a glance:

• What: Briza.io is a platform that connects insurance underwriter systems to insurance agencies, and lets customers get quotes, pay online, and have an insurance policy issued instantly. This is huge because:
• Problem: Currently, it can take a commercial insurance agent up to 5 hours to write an insurance policy for a small business, for a very small commission. It’s a huge pain.
• The big picture: Just as Stripe enables credit card payments with a few lines of code, and Plaid seamlessly enables bank payments, we will enable any app to sell insurance from our carriers with a few lines of code
• Major carriers: We have partnerships with 4 top insurance carriers, including Crum & Forster (a Fairfax company), Hiscox, Markel, and Coalition.
• Customers: There are over 100 insurance agencies signed up for the closed beta version of the product all across the United States
• Team: Team is led by CEO Ben Munro (20 years insurance exec experience), Rishi Sharma, CTO (former director of engineering, FreshBooks), Dom Bortolussi, COO (founder, TWG)
• Institutional investors: Major institutional investors include 500 Startups and Leaders Fund
• Angels: Angel investors include Sid Sankaran, CFO of Oscar Health; Alon Neches, former Treasurer, AIG; Sharon Ludlow, former CEO, Swiss Re Canada; Mike McDerment, CEO of FreshBooks; Louis Beryl, Founder and former CEO of Earnest Inc.

“They say the commercial insurance industry walks slowly, but this can’t continue in the era of APIs,” said Ben Munro, CEO of Briza. “Briza is creating the infrastructure that underwriting systems will use to talk to insurance agencies, consumer apps, and anybody who wants to instantly sell insurance with just a few lines of code.”

“The commercial insurance industry is moving slowly towards the instantaneous, online procurement of commercial policies,” Munro added. “It’s about time!”

About Briza

Briza is an online quote, bind, and payment tool that makes small business policies more valuable for your agency. For more information, visit https://briza.io.

Source: Briza