Insurance startup TrustLayer Raises US$15m
TrustLayer, a collaborative risk management platform, has closed a Series A funding round of $15.1 million. Craft Ventures led the round with participation from returning investors Abstract Ventures, Box Group, Propel Venture Partners, NFP Ventures, Sure Ventures, and new investor PruVen Capital. As part of the funding round, Brian Murray, Partner and COO at Craft Ventures, will join TrustLayer’s Board of Directors.
TrustLayer is an AI-powered collaborative risk management platform working to digitise the highly manual and paper-based process of insurance verification. With TrustLayer, companies can automate the verification of insurance, licenses, and compliance documents of their business partners (i.e., vendors, subcontractors, suppliers, borrowers, tenants, ridesharing, and franchisees) in a digital dashboard.
Research shows that 75% of U.S. businesses are underinsured. In addition to risk, the current process is costly for insurers and the companies requesting verification: 200,000 proof of coverage requests are made daily in the U.S., causing significant resource strain and administrative cost.
"It's clear that verification of insurance and business credentials is a pain point for millions of businesses, which is why we have seen such enthusiastic support for TrustLayer's secure, automated solution," said John Fohr, co-founder and CEO of TrustLayer. "We are especially proud to have such significant backing from a top-tier SaaS fund like Craft Ventures as well as some of the top insurance brokers in the country, a tremendous industry validation for our technology. We look forward to continuing this momentum with the support of our investors."
Modernising the insurance industry
Founded in 2019, TrustLayer is now backed by 20 of the top 100 leading brokerages, including the Graham Company, Holmes Murphy, Heffernan Insurance Brokers, M3, and BrokerTech Ventures.
Following several successful pilots in 2020, leading insurance brokers both invested in the company and elected to become sales channel partners, reselling the service to their own customers. BrokerTech Ventures, a group made up of 13 of the most innovative insurance agencies in the U.S. and 11 top-tier insurance companies, made TrustLayer their first investment in a company that completed their accelerator programme. TrustLayer is the only solution with this level of industry support.
"Insurance helps mitigate risk. For businesses, insurance plays a critical role in the durability of its operations. The problem is no one is exactly sure who's covered and by how much -- we're still swapping poorly scanned PDFs and faxes to prove outdated coverage," said Brian Murray, Partner and COO at Craft Ventures. "TrustLayer fixes this. Their technology automates the collection and verification of insurance, helping companies and their partners accurately assess risk and avoid business interruption."
