JERSEY CITY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Certificial, the real-time certificate of insurance (COI) issuance and compliance management platform, announced today that they have completed an oversubscribed $5.8 million round of Series A funding. Investors include IA Capital, a New York-based private investment firm specializing in Insurtech and Fintech as the lead investor, Nationwide, Cofounders Capital, Fin VC, and Cameron Ventures.
Certificial is the first platform designed to eliminate pain points for all stakeholders involved in the COI exchange process, including agents and brokers, the insured, and the requestor, by enabling dynamic certificates of insurance using real-time data.
In combination with the funding, Certificial has also launched a partnership with the Property and Casualty Insurance Business of EXL [NASDAQ: EXLS], a leading operations management and analytics company, to provide additional automation for all stakeholders.
In Q1 of 2021, Certificial welcomed over 6,000 new agencies and brokers to the platform. As evidenced by Nationwide’s investment in the company, carrier adoption of Certificial is quickly ramping up. The platform supports tens of thousands of corporate users, including several leading U.S. companies from all industries, that can now monitor their suppliers’ insurance coverage in real-time, without the administrative burden and cost.
Peter Teresi, Certificial co-founder and CEO, said, “We’re thrilled to have a terrific team of strategic investors which each bring their own unique value and ability to accelerate growth.” Teresi, former CTO at ACORD, adds, “Together, we are transforming a process and opening up a whole new world of possibilities to stakeholders.”
“Businesses are focused on increasing their digital footprint and Certificial is filling the demand for continuous compliance monitoring,” Teresi said. “Our platform is designed to bring operational efficiency and automation to all stakeholders. At the same time, having access to real-time coverage information enables companies to make more informed decisions, which further protects the financial interest of all parties.”
Matt Perlman, Partner at IA Capital, said, “We are thrilled to be partnering with Pete and the whole Certificial team as they overcome a major pain point for the commercial insurance industry and businesses of all types. We've been incredibly impressed by their technical capabilities, industry savvy and the dynamic, frictionless platform they are building to connect stakeholders throughout the insurance verification process."
“Business owners need to be able to verify that their partners, contractors and vendors are properly insured quickly and conveniently,” said Tony Fenton, Nationwide’s Vice President of Commercial Lines Underwriting and Product. “Nationwide believes Certificial’s digital technology will provide a level of speed, ease, and automation efficiency that will benefit both agencies and insureds, thus freeing them up to focus on other areas of their business.”
Raghav Jaggi, Senior Vice President and Global Insurance F&A and P&C Co-Leader at EXL, says, “We are excited to partner with Certificial. Together, we look forward to bringing to our clients an end-to-end certificate of insurance solution to service requestors in real-time, including certificate issuance, coverage monitoring and compliance management across brokers, carriers and requestors.”
About Certificial
Certificial is a real-time intelligent insurance verification and monitoring platform, designed to simplify the supplier management and certificate issuance processes by providing businesses with dynamic ACORD certificates of insurance. Real-time compliance alerts increase transparency of coverage information, can help curtail the risk of fraud, misinformation, inadequate coverage, and lapses or reductions in coverage, and can be used to trigger actions that eliminate uninsured activity, such as turning off building access to an un- or under-insured supplier.
At Certificial, we’re changing the way companies verify and monitor the insurance of their suppliers, and in the process, we’re providing value to insureds, reducing agency and broker costs, and addressing the compliance needs of all stakeholders involved. Visit www.certificial.com for more information.
About IA Capital
IA Capital is the longest-tenured independent venture capital firm focusing on insurtech. Based in New York City, IA Capital has a two-decade track record of successfully partnering with innovative early and growth stage companies in insurance and—more broadly—financial services. IA is currently investing in its sixth, seventh, and eighth venture capital funds and manages strategic venture capital programs for 16 insurers. Learn more at iacapgroup.com.
About Nationwide
Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the United States. Nationwide is rated A+ by both A.M. Best and Standard & Poor's. An industry leader in driving customer-focused innovation, Nationwide provides a full range of insurance and financial services products including auto, business, homeowners, farm and life insurance; public and private sector retirement plans, annuities and mutual funds; excess & surplus, specialty and surety; pet, motorcycle and boat insurance.
For more information, visit www.nationwide.com. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
About Cofounders Capital
Cofounders Capital is an early-stage venture capital fund focused on B2B software ventures and managed by serially successful entrepreneurs David Gardner, Tim McLoughlin, and Tobi Walter. Cofounders has a team of over one hundred advisors and volunteer mentors who are investors in the fund, eager to support entrepreneurship and to help their portfolio companies and entrepreneurs succeed.
About Fin VC
Fin VC, based in San Francisco and New York, invests in the US and EU/UK in Enterprise SaaS FinTech companies. The firm focuses principally on six sub-sectors: Embedded Finance, Asset Management/Capital Markets, CFO Tech Stack, InsurTech, Blockchain Enterprise, and Enabling Tech/Infrastructure. As former corporate and start-up operators, the team takes an active value-added approach, leveraging its Operating Playbook to steward its portfolio companies with business development, capital formation, corporate development, board advisory and talent sourcing. For more information, visit finvc.co.
About Cameron Ventures
Cameron Ventures is an early-stage venture fund with affiliate operating companies that serve customers across the United States, primarily in insurance, banking and asset management. Cameron is able to empower its portfolio companies with access to financial and strategic capital, seasoned real-world management teams, and a substantial customer base.
About EXL
EXL (NASDAQ: EXLS) is a leading operations management and analytics company that helps their clients build and grow sustainable businesses. By orchestrating domain expertise, data, analytics and digital technology, EXL looks deeper to design and manage agile, customer-centric operating models to improve global operations, drive profitability, enhance customer satisfaction, increase data-driven insights, and manage risk and compliance. Headquartered in New York, EXL has approximately 31,600 professionals in locations throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, India, the Philippines, Colombia, Canada, Australia and South Africa. EXL serves multiple industries including insurance, healthcare, banking and financial services, utilities, travel, transportation and logistics, media and retail, among others. For more information, visit www.exlservice.com.
