Insurance Is Next Target For Founders Who Sold Payments Startup To Intuit

The founders of Check, who sold their mobile payments startup to Intuit in 2014 for more than $350 million, are back, tackling the business insurance industry this time.

Guy Goldstein, Nissim Tapiro, and Alon Huri on Tuesday announced they raised a large $13 million seed funding for their Palo Alto startup, Next Insurance, in a round led by Zeev Ventures, TLV Partners and Ribbit Capital.

“We were looking for a big space where there was an opportunity to disrupt, and one of them is definitely insurance,” Goldstein told me.

The problem, he said, is that buying business insurance can be quite complicated and is usually done now through an agent.

“What we will do is offer insurance online that is tailored to specific professions,” Goldstein said. “If you are a lawyer in New York, we will tell you exactly what you need. Not more and not less. You can answer some questions on the Web or on mobile and get a quote. You will know exactly what you are getting, what you are paying for and why your are paying for it. You put your credit card information in and you are done. In 15 minutes you can have your insurance.”

Goldstein said that the seed money will help Next build its team and launch its product nationally this spring.

Next Insurance is part of a wave of new startups tackling the industry. CB Insights reported earlier this month there had been 24 other seed and Series A deals in the sector in the first quarter. That is a record pace that would equal more than a third of all insurance startup funding deals last year and about half the deals done in 2014.

“The fact that there are lots of other companies coming into the space is great for the industry because we will all learn from each other,” Goldstein said, adding that most others are going after consumer insurance. “Our biggest competition is the insurance companies and the agents, not other startups.”

Goldstein said he isn’t worried about the troubles that San Francisco-based Zenefits has had in its attempts to disrupt the enterprise health and life insurance business.

“They are focused on areas that fit with the free payroll and benefits software they offer,” he said. “We and Zenefits can be great partners in the future.”

He also said he isn’t worried about resistance from the entrenched agent system and complicated regulatory bureaucracy around insurance.

“We were in payments with our previous company, and that is by far more complex,” Goldstein said. “The nice thing about the insurance industry is that it is very mature. There is a lot of supporting structure to help you navigate the complexity of regulation and compliance. We were lucky enough to find the right people to help us deal with that.”

Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal, Cromwell Schubarth
Photo: Palo Alto-based Next Insurance is co-founded by the same team that led mobile payments startup Check, which they sold to Intuit in 2014. They just raised a $13 million seed funding round. They are, from left, Nissim Tapiro, Guy Goldstein and Alon Huri.

Cromwell Schubarth is TechFlash Editor at the Silicon Valley Business Journal.