InsuranceDekho CEO On $60 Million Fundraise
InsuranceDekho CEO and Founder Ankit Agrawal speaks to BQ Prime on the startup's $60 million fundraise and growth ambitions.
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00:00 We're joined here by Ankit Agarwal. He's the founder and CEO of Insurance Dekho.
00:05 We're in the Insurance Dekho office. It's a lovely office here in Gurgaon.
00:09 Great to have you here, Ankit.
00:11 Pleasure, my buddy.
00:12 It's another fundraise for Insurance Dekho. Massive fundraise that too.
00:18 What are your intentions with this one?
00:20 So we're primarily looking, sorry, we're primarily doing this fundraise for three things.
00:27 One, we're looking at M&A targets. So there are a couple of acquisitions, which you should be hearing about soon.
00:33 Second, we want to diversify our business. We've been in distribution of retail products.
00:38 We also want to get into reinsurance now. Third, we want to spend some money in brand and marketing.
00:46 With this fundraise also comes on the cap table is, let's walk a little.
00:53 With that comes Mitsubishi, it's one of Japan's largest banks.
00:57 What are some synergies you see with that?
01:01 So I think we're blessed to have three great partners, not Mitsubishi alone.
01:07 So MUFG is coming in. With MUFG, you get a lot of backing of how to build a global brand.
01:14 How do you build a company which lives for decades?
01:16 You're not building a company for the next five years, ten years.
01:19 We're also getting Eurasio, which is an insure tech fund promoted by one of the largest European insurance companies.
01:27 With them, we get the know-how. How do you build a full stack solution?
01:31 Tomorrow, if the government of India, IID regulations allow us to get into MGA, we can leverage on that.
01:37 Third, we are also getting India's first fintech focused fund, Beams on our cap table.
01:41 We are of the firm belief that you should build for India and you should build for Bharat.
01:45 And getting Beam fintech on our cap table is a step in that direction.
01:49 Lovely. Ankit, we're also seeing your FY23 balance sheet about nearing 100 crores in revenues.
01:58 Losses are also shrinking quite a bit.
02:01 These two fundraisers, what sort of impact will they have on the top line as well as the bottom line?
02:06 So the company continues to grow. We are an IID regulated entity.
02:09 Our revenues are in line with the IID guidelines.
02:12 Our core business is profitable and it has been profitable for the last two quarters now.
02:18 We are investing some money in new initiatives, but at a company level, we should be profitable by the end of December.
02:24 And then Q4, we are looking at being profitable at a part level.
02:28 Super. Ankit, one more question that comes to my mind is,
02:32 how does insurance dekho sort of plans to navigate the rural market?
02:38 The urban market, I'd say that there have already been quite a bit of strategies that have been successful.
02:44 How do you bridge the urban-rural divide?
02:46 We have always been building for Bharat.
02:48 We've been saying this since day one. Last time I met you, I told you that we are building for Bharat.
02:53 We believe that in the next 10 to 15 years, the financial product sales in India will be done through a digital mode.
03:01 You will need people who will come to you, explain to you how the product is,
03:06 what is the benefit of the product and also helping servicing of the product.
03:10 So we've always focused on that.
03:11 We focused on having our agent partners who are POSPs, that are certified agents who will go to houses,
03:19 who will go and meet our customers and explain the benefits of buying insurance products.
03:24 So digital is the future going on.
03:27 I mean, that's also similar to what we are seeing in EdTech.
03:30 There's always a focus on online, but there's also a hybrid model that's taking off.
03:37 So you predict that as the future for insurance broking as well?
03:41 Yeah, absolutely.
03:42 Interesting.
03:44 Another question, you already brought up the point of acquisitions that will be coming in.
03:49 You already acquired Verak this year.
03:53 What sort of a ticket size and what sort of, what's the size of these startups or these companies?
03:59 We're pretty open.
04:01 We have enough and more capital on our balance sheet now.
04:03 So we're pretty open to size of the asset.
04:07 If the asset is good, if it adds value, we have enough and more capital available to us.
04:11 So in fact, the amount we've raised is just about 40% of the amount that was available to us.
04:17 So we had way more amount available to us.
04:21 Lastly, if you don't want to talk about it, I understand that.
04:24 But the valuation, I think you've already raised about 200 million plus.
04:29 Your valuation would be in what sort of a bracket?
04:33 So I told you last time also, valuation is just an outcome.
04:36 What you build is more important.
04:39 The valuation is significantly higher than the last round valuation.
04:42 I am not at liberty to share the exact number, but we would be at least at a 50% higher valuation than the last round valuation.
04:49 Excellent.
04:50 That was Ankit Agarwal, the founder and CEO of Insurance Deco.
04:53 Stay tuned.
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