Plum Insurance, which works with companies to provide group health insurance to employees, said on May 31 that it has raised $15.6 million in a Series A funding round led by Tiger Global Management- continuing the New York-based firm’s investing frenzy in Indian startups.
Plum’s previous investors including Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Tanglin Venture Partners also invested. Its angel investors include Kunal Shah (founder, Cred), Gaurav Munjal, Roman Saini and Hemesh Singh (co-founders of Unacademy), Lalit Keshre, Harsh Jain and Ishan Bansal (co-founders of Groww) and Ramakant Sharma and Anuj Srivastava (founders of Livspace).
Founded by Abhishek Poddar and Saurabh Arora, Plum provides a technology platform to corporate employees as well as the companies managing the insurance to get a personalised offer for companies and breaking down pricing. It has over 600 customers including investment platform Groww, edtech firm Unacademy and online furniture retailer UrbanLadder.
“Plum aims to reach a milestone of 10mn lives insured by 2025, by changing the employee health insurance space. With Plum, we are making the process transparent, affordable and easy, using tech at scale. The adoption of health insurance by startups, SMEs and corporates is increasing exponentially, and is further accelerated by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic,” said Abhishek Poddar, Co-founder & CEO, Plum.
“Healthcare in India is seeing a phenomenal change. Healthcare cost is seeing inflation that is two times the general inflation. India is witnessing new and unexpected diseases every day – COVID-19 is a stark example of this. Treatments of these diseases can wipe out entire household savings. This is leading to increased awareness and penetration of health insurance, but not many Indians can afford it. Most need their employers to sponsor insurance,” the company said.
Tiger is on track to close over two dozen investments in India this year, including portfolio top-ups and fresh deals, a new record for an investor already known as one of India’s biggest technology investors. Its investments this year include software firms Innovaccer and Chargebee, Groww, social media firm ShareChat, ecommerce firm Infra.Market and healthcare firm Pristyn Care, among others.
