Authentic Insurance, a New York-based insurtech startup, has raised $11 mn in a Series A funding round, led by FirstMark Capital, with contributions from Slow Ventures, Altai Ventures, MGV, Upper90, and Commerce Ventures.
The funding aims to support team expansion and the addition of new insurance products like workers’ compensation and health insurance.
Authentic founded in 2022. It focuses on enabling SaaS platforms, associations, and other communities to create their own captive insurance programs tailored for small businesses.
Last year, the company has raised $5.5 mn in seed funding led by Slow Ventures, with participation from Altai Ventures, MGV, Upper90, Clocktower, Commerce Ventures, Mischief Ventures and Core Innovation Capital.
Authentic’s primary offering allows partners to integrate insurance products with just one line of code, streamlining the process of providing coverage to their users.
Authentic manages underwriting, claims, capital markets, and reinsurance, charging a fee for these services. The company targets businesses with less than $5 mn in annual revenue.
CEO Cole Riccardi leads Authentic. Riccardi expressed gratitude to investors and partners, praising the team’s effort in advancing the company.
We’d like to thank our investors (FirstMark, Slow Ventures, and others mentioned below) for tackling something very challenging with us.
Cole Riccardi, CEO Authentic
“We’d like to thank our partner platforms for seeing the vision and understanding the benefits to users, it will soon be obvious to everyone. I’d personally like to thank my teammates for their heroic effort in pushing our product and company forward every single day”, Cole Riccardi says.
Authentic provides the infrastructure for franchisors, software companies or associations to roll out their own insurance offering – also known as a “captive” – to their existing customers.
Like a “co-op” or “collective” model, these member-owned programs allow for hyper-customized coverage and potential dividends when there are fewer claims, which can lead to cost savings as well.
It’s the first win-win insurance model for both small businesses, and the companies serving them today. Small businesses get better options at a better rate, while our partners can easily add new product lines and revenue streams with Authentic’s infrastructure.
Since launching last September, Authentic has gained over 10 customers, including Mindbody, Restaurant365, and theCut, which serve about one million small businesses.
The company has sold over 100 policies and aims to exceed 1,000 by summer’s end.
The way commercial insurance is bought and sold has largely remained unchanged since it first came into existence over 50 years ago
Adam Nelson, Partner at Firstmark Capital
Authentic is the first company to virtually eliminate the need for traditional carriers. With a platform approach that enables partners to roll out their own new insurance offerings, it’s been incredible to watch as millions of businesses instantly gain access to a better insurance model on day one”, Adam Nelson commented.
Authentic is the first insurance provider to offer small businesses with locations in multiple states the ability to purchase and manage multi-location policies fully online.
“While Authentic’s platform has many differentiating capabilities, one we are extremely proud of is the new multi-state, multi-location functionality. With this announcement, our platform now has the ability to purchase business owners one insurance policy that protects multiple locations across multiple states, all completely online”, Cole Riccardi says.
