Insurer Acko 34th Indian unicorn in 2021

Mumbai: New age insurer Acko has become the 34th unicorn (valued at over $1 billion) this year following the close of its series-D round of $255 million, which values the company at $1.1 billion. The current round was led by General Atlantic and also included participation from Canada’s largest pension fund CPPIB and Lightspeed Growth as well as existing investors Intact Ventures and Munich Re Ventures.
Acko’s total funds raised till now stand at $450 million. Previously, the insurer had raised capital from Amazon, Accel, Elevation, Ascent Capital, Intact Ventures, Munich Re Ventures and Flipkart’s co-founder Binny Bansal, among others.
“We were keen on investors who run regulated businesses or are partners to companies that run regulated businesses. Both General Atlantic and Canada Pension have investment in regulated financial services,” said Acko founder & CEO Varun Dua. “A big part of this investment will go into scaling our health insurance vertical. Almost half of the capital might end up focusing on the health insurance side.”
Acko has the largest market share in embedded insurance products like mobility & gadget insurance across large digital consumer platforms like Amazon, MakeMyTrip, Ola, Urban Company and Bajaj Finance. In addition, Acko covers nearly a million gig workers in the country through partnerships with companies, including Zomato and Swiggy.
“There is a digitally native population that will continue to grow. We would like to be the destination for protection for these customers,” said Dua. He added that he expected premium income to cross Rs 1,200 crore in FY22 and more than double to Rs 2,600 crore in FY23. Unlike rivals, Acko plans to remain focused on the consumer segment and does not intend to use its balance sheet to take on industrial risks.