RenewBuy to Raise Rs 200 cr in Third RoundPosted by Jacob Saini on May 18th, 2021 Digital insurance platform RenewBuy is talking to investors to raise Rs 200 crore of equity as it prepares to consolidate its presence in the tier 2 and tier 3 cities. The brokerage firm is negotiating with both existing and new investors. The process has just commenced. Our existing investors are participating along with new investors,” RenewBuy chief executive officer Balachander Sekhar told ET. “A lot of interest is shown by new investors on digital disruption especially during Covid-19 times where shift to digital is happening faster,” he said. Lok Capital, IIFL Asset management, Amicus Capital Partners and Mount Nathan are existing investors in the company founded by Sekhar and chief operating officer Indraneel Chatterjee in 2015 with Rs 10 crore. It has about Rs 190 crore equity at present. This would be the third capital infusion into the company. It had raised Rs 60 crore and Rs 120 crore in the previous two rounds.
RenewBuy plans to spend the fund in tier 2 and tier 3 cities and raise agent count five times to 2 lakh in the next three years. The founders said that it reached out to nearly 20 lakh customers so far through its agents carrying digitally enabled point of sales machines.
The insurance broker’s revenue for the April-October period grew 40% to Rs 400 crore over the same period last year. About 90% of its business comes from motor insurance.
Chatterjee sees exponential growth potential in the smaller cities for motor insurance since about one-fourth of the vehicles plying in the road is not insured.
“There is a lack of awareness and understanding of insurance products. We are building the agent force to address this and grow business,” Sekhar said.
After a lull post lockdown, insurance saw an improvement in the August-October period, but it fizzled out in November with the industry reporting APE de-growth of about 44.4% year on year. This is the first month of decline since July, largely due to 63% APE de-growth for Life Insurance Corporation, Emkay Global Financial Services said in a report.
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