While the pandemic shined a spotlight on the fragility of the supply chain industry, the role of the trucking industry has remained resolute. In fact, the trucking industry has been a driving force in allowing society to adapt to the challenges of the pandemic by ensuring availability of consumer goods, medical supplies, and even vaccines. But with increased importance and attention comes increased overhead costs including insurance. Koffie Insurance is an insurance platform focused on the trucking and transportation industry. By leveraging technology, the platform is able to streamline all facets of the truck insurance experience starting with origination and quoting through claims management. Currently, trucks are required to have a minimum coverage of $750K per truck but this minimum was established in 1980; there’s been a recent push to increase the minimum to $2M, representing a massive opportunity for Koffie and others in the commercial trucking insurance market. The company has written policies for 1000+ trucks thus far and is live in three states with plans to scale to ten states by the end of the year
AlleyWatch caught up with Koffie Insurance CEO and Cofounder Ian White to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the total funding raised to $15.5M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
The Series A round was $11M, led by Anthemis Group, which specializes in funding best-in-class, high-growth, digitally native financial services companies, joining existing investors Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Plug and Play Ventures. New investors include CP Overture, Breakout Capital, Two Lanterns Venture Partners, and a select group of strategic angel investors.
Tell us about the product or service that Koffie Insurance offers.
Koffie delivers superior insurance coverage at industry-leading prices to the trucking and transportation sector through an advanced, proprietary platform that utilizes AI and machine learning to upend the quoting, underwriting, and claims process.
What inspired the start of Koffie Insurance?
Trucking businesses are going out of business because they cannot afford their insurance premiums. We saw how vastly underserved the industry has been and knew we could create a solution that met truckers’ financial needs while investing in their safety at the same time.
How is Koffie Insurance different?
Koffie is the first insurtech to integrate safety into underwriting, pricing, and loss control, Koffie uses real-time data and machine learning models to evaluate individual trucks and drivers. Koffie delivers instant and tailored policies that invest in safety, rewarding safe fleets with lower premiums than traditional insurers. By providing telematics devices and AI-enabled dashcams to fleets, Koffie helps drivers avoid accidents and coaches them to reduce risky behavior. Factoring these features into Koffie’s underwriting, truckers and fleet owners pay less than the competition.
What market does Koffie Insurance target and how big is it?
The large majority of U.S. fleets are independent truckers or small businesses with 50 trucks or less. Koffie is targeting those – the 99% – giving them the same insurance protections and technology that the giants – the 1% – enjoy.
What’s your business model?
Koffie is structured as a managing general agency (MGA), which means we retain a portion of the premium written.
How are you preparing for a potential recession?
Ensure that our fleet customers are well-positioned in their business.
What was the funding process like?
By definition, it’s never easy but we’ve been disciplined in running the business, have strong performance, and a differentiated approach. That’s a story investors want to hear and the rest is details.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Uncertainty in the economy is on everyone’s mind. Fortunately, trucking insurance is compulsory, so our challenge has always been finding the right fleets to work with.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Our investors have high conviction in our team, approach, and demonstrated results.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
In the next six months, we plan to expand to Pennsylvania, Georgia, and ten more states through the end of 2022.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
There is still, and will always be, capital out there for good companies. That being said, the bar is much higher now than a year ago. Budget conservatively and make sure you have enough runway to hit the metrics that will attract investors.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
Writing more premium, selling more lines of coverage in more states with additional agents.
What’s your favorite restaurant in the city?
Raol’s.
