Kenyan-based B2B and B2B2C insurance-as-a-service platform and API, Lami just secured a $3.7 million seed extension round to help with its expansionist policy across Africa.
Lami, founded in 2018 by Jihan Abass, is an insurance platform operating in the digital space that enables partner businesses such as tech companies, banks, etc., to offer digital insurance products easily through its API.
Last year, the startup was chosen by Catalyst Fund to be included in the eighth cohort of its inclusive fintech accelerator and also secured $1.8 million in seed funding. The startup also offers services to partner businesses to manage their own insurance needs and connect them with underwriters, which provides them with the opportunity to offer a superior customer experience.
This round of funding was led by Harlem Capital, which is an early-stage venture firm that focuses on investing in seed-stage tech-related startups owned by minority or female founders. Here are the companies that participated in this funding round:
- Newtown partners: An early-stage venture capital firm;
- Peter Bruce-Clark: A partner at New York’s research-driven venture capital company, Social Impact Capital;
- Caribou Honig and Jay Weintraub of Insurtech Connect: A networking platform for insurtech innovators;
- senior members of Exotix Advisory: A corporate finance and M&A boutique which focuses on emerging and developing markets.
The CEO and founder of Lami stated that the funding that the company just received would be invested into business development, product and technology development, and advance its expansionist policy to other parts of Africa, such as Uganda, Nigeria, and Egypt, as it only operates presently in Kenya; she said:
“Lami is pioneering innovation in the insurance sector, and we are glad to have secured the right partners to help drive insurance uptake across Africa.” We are looking to make insurance easily accessible to everyone on the continent, and we will continually be unveiling more products that confirm this resolve”.
The leader of this seed extension round, Harlem Capital, stated that Lami possessed diverse market scope and had a strategic approach to growth, which attracted them to it; The principal, Gabby Cazeau, said:
“We believe the next wave of fintech will embed financial products and services like insurance into a customer’s purchase experience.” Lami’s approach to serving people through strategic partners in eCommerce and finance is the best way to build trust with users and deliver insurance in a seamless, accessible way to Africans across the continent. Lami’s impressive growth to date shows that this resonates with customers and has a strong trajectory as they expand across the continent”.
Note: To further advance their expansionist policy to other African countries and drive rapid growth, Lami acquired its fellow competitor and counterpart, Bluewave.
Benefits of technology for the insurance sector
InsurTech is becoming a popular word in the insurance sector as technology has changed the traditional insurance sector for the better over the last 2 years. In the last 2 years, insurance companies have transformed themselves digitally to offer a seamless experience to their customers, and here are the benefits of technology to the insurance sector:
To encourage their users to keep fit, developers have utilized fitness apps or wearable devices such as Wysa to help users maintain their weight, boost energy, and eat balanced meals, which in turn provides them with low insurance rates.
When most users of an Insurance company are fit, it will help greatly in saving huge amounts allocated for health-related costs hence by encouraging its customers to keep fit and healthy- the company should offer them discounts and benefits but this should be based on fitness levels which imply that the fittest grabs the largest coupon.
Read: Kenya’s Tech Startups Benefit from Enhanced Enterprise Financing
When one drives manually, he/she is prone to mistakes that may result in an accident. Hence, the company spends a lot on life insurance rates, but with the invention of self-driving or automated cars such as Tesla, the percentage of road accidents and crashes has taken a downturn, leading to fewer deaths and life insurance claims.
Insurance fraud has been a major problem for insurance companies as companies lose billions of dollars per year to fraudsters worldwide, but with the introduction of an advanced technology framework, it is on its path to defeating this huge menace. This technology helps eliminate the ability to create a fake insurance policy, hence preventing fraud. For example: A company can use digital signatures to prevent fraud, and insurance purchased after a fraud can be taken down with the digital signatures verifying the actual date. This can be used to detect fraud and involves data mining and quantitative analysis; one can use predictive analysis to improve the fraud detection process, which helps forestall claims payouts.
According to IoT Analytics, the number of connected IoT devices worldwide is expected to grow by 9%, and by 2025 there should be over 27 billion IoT connections, which will ensure that there is real-time information that insurers can use for better pricing/ underwriting.
Read: Nigeria’s Xend Finance passes 100k users, launches in Ghana and Kenya
Through automated systems, users can now be notified when their due dates for premiums are approaching, eliminating the tendency for unintentional defaults. Most insurance companies now employ the use of digital wallets such as Google Play to sell insurance to their users.
Since all insurance policies are not the same, it will require the help of an insurance agent, but even they have to be backed by the internet to ensure more productivity and efficiency.
Technology has proven to be changing all the dynamics of our lives by influencing all the activities we do, and the insurance sector is not left out as technology has brought the much-needed efficiency the sector needs.
