PolicyBazaar Raises Over $200 Million led by SoftBank Vision Fund, Enters Unicorn Club

According to sources, the current valuation of the company is pegged at over USD 1 billion with the latest transaction.

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New Delhi: Insurance portal PolicyBazaar has raised over USD 200 million (around Rs 1,360 crore) through a fresh round of investment led by Japan's SoftBank, in a deal that is expected to secure the online insurance aggregator a place in the coveted Unicorn club.

ETechAces and Consulting — which operates PolicyBazaar.com — said in a statement on Monday that it has clinched over USD 200 million in an investment round led by SoftBank Vision Fund, with participation from existing investors, including InfoEdge (Naukri.com).

According to sources, the current valuation of the company is pegged at over USD 1 billion with the latest transaction.

When contacted, a company spokesperson declined to comment on the valuation but said part of the funds would be used to grow the lending, investment and insurance business along with new initiatives such as healthcare tech and services and international expansion.

Generally, a unicorn is a privately-held online startup valued at over USD 1 billion.

The celebrated tech Unicorn club in India already has names like Flipkart, Paytm, Ola, Byju's, Zomato and Hike. Only last week, food delivery platform Swiggy raised USD 210 million (over Rs 1,430 crore) in fresh round of funding led by Naspers and DST Global, reportedly entering the unicorn club.

PolicyBazaar.com, which enables people to buy insurance online, hosts over 100 million visitors yearly and records sale of nearly 300,000 transactions a month, as per the statement.

Meanwhile, InfoEdge, in a BSE filing, said it has signed an agreement with SoftBank to jointly invest USD 90 million in Etechaces Marketing and Consulting for a 8.93 per cent stake on a fully diluted basis.

Further, the filing said the investment has been structured through Diphda Internet Services.

As per the agreement, SoftBank will invest USD 45 million for a 49.99 per cent stake in Diphda while InfoEdge will invest a similar amount for the remaining stake.

PolicyBazaar.com has raised a total of USD 366 million through half a dozen funding rounds, excluding the seed funding round, the company spokesperson said.

PolicyBazaar's statement cited a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to state that digital influence on insurance purchases will grow to 50 per cent for life insurance and 75 per cent for general insurance by 2020.

This translates to nearly Rs 1,20,000 crore of new insurance premiums being digitally influenced by 2020, it said.