Obie has raised $26 million in Series B funding to expand its embedded insurance offering for real estate investors.
The firm will use the new funding to add new partnerships and products, Obie said in a Wednesday (May 17) press release.
“We’re excited to have the ongoing support of our investors as we continue to build insurance products that drive efficiency and change the way insurance is bought and sold,” Obie Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Letzeiser said in the release. “This funding supports the future of embedded insurance, as we expand our partnerships across industries and offer additional insurance products to clients.”
Obie was founded in 2017 and uses embedded insurance solutions to offer real estate investors instantly bindable quotes through partner platforms, according to the press release.
The company now has 75 partners — including ones in PropTech, FinTech, property management and other relevant segments — and has seen 300% growth among real estate investors over the past two years, the release said.
It serves a market that includes 18 million real estate investors in the United States, per the release.
Obie’s latest funding round was led by venture capital (VC) firm Battery Ventures and followed a Series A round that closed in 2021 and raised $10.7 million, according to the press release.
“Despite the recent volatility in the real estate and InsurTech markets, we believe Obie’s approach to growth — namely, by using an API-first approach and embedding their technology within their large ecosystem partners — is the right one for this market, and the company’s recent success demonstrates this,” Battery Ventures General Partner and Obie Board Member Michael Brown said in the release. “We’re excited to re-commit to Obie and continue to help the company scale.”
PYMNTS research has found that consumers are hungry for direct and seamless ways of obtaining insurance coverage. For example, 70% of digital bank customers would be highly interested in at least one type of bank-embedded offer, according to the “Embedded Insurance Report: Leveraging Transaction Data to Expand Coverage in a Digital-First Market,” a PYMNTS and Cover Genius collaboration.
Cover Genius raised $70 million in a Series D funding round announced in November 2022, saying it will expand its embedded insurance model.