CPE News (9/2/2020) – ProNavigator has raised $5.6 million in new equity and debt financing co-led Luge Capital, GreenSky Capital and MaRS IAF and with participation of Inovia Capital, BDC Capital and CIBC Innovation Banking.
The new round brings company’s total funding amount to $7.8 million.
ProNavigator intends to use new funding to hire key resources to power expanded operations in the U.S. and Canada, and to extend ProNavigator’s product line.
Kitchener, Ontario based ProNavigator provides an AI-based platform, used by some of the largest insurance organizations in North America, to enable insurance companies to save time, provide superior service, and seize revenue opportunities.
photo credit: ProNavigator
News Release
ProNavigator Raises $5.6 Million to Accelerate Expansion and Extend AI-Driven Knowledge Sharing Platform
Sep 2, 2020
Customer growth and funding validate ProNavigator’s unique ability to increase productivity within insurance brokerages and carriers
ProNavigator, an insurance technology (InsurTech) company that helps leading carriers and brokerages overcome information barriers, announced today that it has closed a CAD $5.6 million financing round.
This latest round was co-led by new investor Luge Capital and existing investors GreenSky Capital and MaRS IAF, who were joined by iNovia Capital, BDC and CIBC Innovation Banking, and brings the company’s total amount raised to $7.8 million. The new capital will be used to hire key resources to power expanded operations in the U.S. and Canada, and to extend ProNavigator’s product line.
This announcement comes on the heels of significant momentum for ProNavigator. Founded in 2016, the company’s solutions have been implemented by industry heavyweights HUB International, Wawanesa and TD Insurance to deliver superior customer service and to more effectively seize revenue opportunities, and earlier this year ProNavigator was the only Canadian company selected by the U.S.-based consortium of insurance players, BrokerTech Ventures, to deliver innovation into the U.S. insurance broker industry.
“Information is the lifeblood of insurance, but too often it doesn’t flow fast enough to meet the demands of the business – resulting in lost time, missed revenue opportunities and lowered productivity,” said Joseph D’Souza, ProNavigator’s CEO and founder. “Underwriting teams, claims staff and brokers spend many hours each day searching for information and answering the same questions over and over again. The information and language within the industry are very specialized, so generic approaches are insufficient – that’s why we purpose-engineered a solution that is 100 percent focused on insurance.”
ProNavigator’s platform pairs a proprietary, pre-trained natural language understanding (NLU) engine with a straightforward, conversational interface that allows users to ask questions and look up information across an entire library of digital resources. By retrieving accurate answers instantly and automating workflows, the platform enables ProNavigator’s clients to outperform companies that still rely on legacy approaches to knowledge management. Because the platform learns from each user interaction and every document it analyzes, there is a powerful compounding effect that widens the competitive advantage both for the platform itself and for ProNavigator’s clients.
“No one likes to wait for answers and ProNavigator addresses this industry-wide and costly problem, especially as it relates to enabling sales and broker channel customer service,” said David Nault, General Partner of Luge Capital. “Strong customer demand, a solid value proposition and their proven growth strategy caught our attention. We’re looking forward to fueling their growth with our network, experience and capital to help solve the insurance industry’s information flow challenges.”
Insurance is a complex business that involves many manual processes and elaborate collaboration between insurers and their distribution channels. The accelerated shift to remote workforces coupled with ever-rising customer expectations have resulted in new challenges for the industry.
“We want to empower our broker partners to do what they do best – give great advice,” said Graham Haigh, VP of Business Development for Wawanesa Insurance. “By retrieving accurate answers, instantly, ProNavigator’s solution has been an important enabler of our 100 percent broker-distributed Canadian operating model, adding value for us and our broker partners. That’s why we recently increased our work with ProNavigator, and we look forward to seeing the benefits for us and our broker partners.”
Media Contact:
Gisele Karekezi
Communications Manager, Luge Capital
media@luge.vc
C: 514-431-1372
Joseph D’Souza
Founder & CEO, ProNavigator
joseph.dsouza@pronavigator.ai
About ProNavigator
ProNavigator provides an AI-based platform, used by some of the largest insurance organizations in North America, to enable insurance companies to save time, provide superior service, and seize revenue opportunities. The platform leverages the latest advancements in artificial intelligence and natural language understanding to instantly, automatically and accurately retrieve answers to questions asked by customers and employees. It includes an intuitive search and retrieval interface built specifically for insurance to answer a broad range of underwriting questions, in natural language, across multiple carriers, products, regions, and documents.
About Wawanesa
The Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Company, founded in 1896, is the largest Canadian Property and Casualty Mutual insurer with $3.9 billion in annual revenue and assets of $10.5 billion. Wawanesa Mutual, with executive offices in Winnipeg, is the parent company of Wawanesa General, which offers property and casualty insurance in California and Oregon; Wawanesa Life, which provides life insurance products and services throughout Canada; and Western Financial Group, which distributes personal and business insurance across Western Canada. With more than 5,700 employees, Wawanesa proudly serves more than two million policyholders in Canada and the United States. Wawanesa actively gives back to organizations that strengthen communities where it operates, donating well above internationally recognized benchmarks for excellence in corporate philanthropy. Learn more at wawanesa.com.
About Luge Capital
Luge Capital is a FinTech-focused venture capital fund, investing in early-stage teams shaping the way the world experiences financial services. We invest in fintech and AI solutions applied to financial services and love entrepreneurs challenging the status quo. We work with dedicated teams who are driven to solve real problems that affect people on a global scale. We are an experienced team with value-added investors and a deep industry network to help founders build successful companies.
About GreenSky Capital Inc.
GreenSky Capital Inc. is an award-winning Toronto-based firm that makes investments in early-stage Canadian technology companies through its affiliated venture capital funds, GreenSky Accelerator Fund I, II and III. Our principals bring a combination of experience in technology, entrepreneurship, law and finance to high-growth potential companies and dedicated entrepreneurs. Learn more about GreenSky at www.greenskycapital.com.
About MaRS IAF.
MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund (IAF) is a leading early-stage venture capital firm. MaRS IAF invests in high-potential IT, health, and cleantech companies in Ontario. IAF has over a 10-year history of successfully providing over 150 companies, built by extraordinary founders, with the capital, mentorship, and networks needed to validate ideas and bring products to market. Its mission is to keep Ontario’s talent and technology local while helping its companies go global. For more information, please visit http://www.marsiaf.com.