Biz Builder Mike

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U.S. Insurtech Assurely’s Latest Seed Rounds Brings Total Amount Raised to $3.7 Million

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Assurely, a U.S.-based insurtech that provides embedded insurance as a service, recently announced its closed its seed round, which was led by ATX Ventures. The company reported that the investment round brought its total funding to just more than $3.7 million.

Founded in 2016, Assurely describes itself as an insurtech company that creates and distributes insurance products for changing industries.

“Our technology drives a new model for insurance that supports the new and changing risks created by the fundamental changes in our economy and lives.”

Assurely further revealed it launched its first product, TigerMark, which is a directors and officers–like insurance program targeting the massive changes in how companies use technology and the internet to find investors and raise capital, primarily via the JOBS Act – Reg A, Reg CF and Reg D-506(c). The insurtech claims that no other insurance company is currently providing appropriate insurance for this market. Speaking about the investment, Chris Shonk, Co-Founder and Partner at ATX Ventures, stated:

“Assurely is absolutely the exact right team positioned at the exact right time to capture this market. ATX is thrilled to back such an exceptional and ambitious team to lead their debut institution round of funding.”

The investment round’s funds will enable Assurely to aggressively expand its technology infrastructure and to bring more products to market in record time. The company did not disclose the full amount raised through the round.

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Cale Johnston from Fintech Firm ClickSwitch Reveals that Banking Challengers are Now Interested Only in Handling Direct Deposits

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ClickSwitch, a U.S. fintech that claims it simplifies and automates the switch of direct deposits and recurring payments for financial institutions’ new and existing account holders, recently acquired $2 million through its Series B investment round led by USAA subsidiary. The investment round brings ClickSwitch’s total funding to more than $21 million.

ClickSwitch describes itself as an automated account holding acquisition technology provider for financial institutions and fintechs. The company aims to simplify the process of bringing new depositors onboard by quickly, safely, and efficiently switching their deposits and recurring payments from their old accounts to new ones.

Cale Johnston from ClickSwitch claims that banking challengers are only interested in handling direct deposits now. He reveals that banks have become more aggressive when it comes to onboarding new customers.

As reported by Tearsheet, ClickSwitch has been helping customers of challenger and traditional banks with switching over their direct deposits to their new accounts.

As banking challengers continue to focus on acquiring more customers, they’ve also started to provide better services to their existing clients (so that they can continue to earn their business). Digital banks and other financial service providers are now being judged or evaluated on whether these new account openings can actually turn into new clients. Financial institutions are also being assessed on whether their new customers can rely on them to provide comprehensive banking services.

ClickSwitch aims to assist large challenger banks and incumbents with converting new account openings into loyal customers. The Fintech firm’s proprietary technology has been designed to help new customers with seamlessly switching over their direct deposits and bill pay to their new banking service provider.

The ongoing competition between digital banking solution providers has started to mature. The Fintech and banking industry is not only focusing on acquiring new customers. They also want to onboard and provide quality services to consumers that have already signed up.  Banking challengers are making substantial investments into getting a new customer to consider their new digital accounts as their primary bank accounts.

Cale Johnston, founder and CEO of ClickSwitch, says that customers are able to easily open new checking accounts. He adds that banks are sort of forced with this “dilemma” as to how they can identify a primary bank account holder.

One way to check how engaged a customer might be with a service provider is to see if they’ve got their direct deposit set up. ClickSwitch aims to assist challenger banks and incumbents with figuring out which of their customers are primary bank account holders and are not just maintaining inactive checking accounts.

ClickSwitch’s platform and services can integrate with banks in order to interact with customers directly after they’ve signed up for a new account. ClickSwitch’s management explains that the company uses data aggregation to show new account holders they’ve got a direct deposit of their paychecks setup.

The Fintech company claims that it has a fast approval process, after which customers are ready to move their direct deposit to the new account via integrations with payroll processors.

ClickSwitch claims that it’s currently working with more than 500 financial institutions, which includes some of the largest banking challengers.

In statements shared with Tearsheet, Johnston noted:

“It’s not just about direct deposit — it’s about the downstream effect, as well. Creating the ROI metrics for our financial institutions has been critical in getting us in the front door of our 500 clients and signing 10 to 15 new net financial institutions a month right now.”

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Small Business B2B Search Engine Developer, Grata, Is Using Machine Learning, NLP to Implement its SaaS Platform

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Grata, a company developing the “first-of-its-kind” small business B2B search engine, has secured $3.2 million in seed funding. As mentioned in a release shared with CI, Grata’s investment round was led by Bling Capital along with participation from Accomplice and Alumni Ventures Group. Former executives from Goldman Sachs, American Express, and Citi also took part in Grata’s funding round..

Grata was founded in 2016 by Andrew Bocskocsky and Nevin Raj, two Harvard alumni, and classmates who, respectively, worked as consultants and investors at McKinsey and Palantir.

As mentioned in the announcement:

“[Grata’s founders] built and bootstrapped the company, whose mission is to make every small to mid-sized private company in the U.S. searchable, to well over 100 customers and 1,000 users. To date, business development professionals across private equity, investment banking, and recruiting have transacted over $1B with companies they’ve found through Grata.”

Grata is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that’s able to automate the B2B research process so that key information on the 30 million US businesses may be accessed by private equity and banking institutions.

Grata uses natural language processing (NLP) and web crawling technology. The automated solution may help reduce the time required to complete various processes which are being performed manually.

Andrew Bocskocsky, Co-Founder, CEO at Grata, states:

“Grata is the first search engine for company discovery, providing a single source of truth to find small to middle market private companies. …Grata indexes billions of sources on the web and has innovated the latest NLP technology.”

As noted by the Grata team:

“[Our] machine learning technology enables you to identify similar companies, find new targets you would otherwise miss, and automate personalized outreach. Grata’s platform also powers a suite of digital intelligence products for voice of customer diligence and competitive intelligence.”

Grata’s official website notes that middle-market firms and SMBs are more than “99% of your opportunities.” The company’s solutions can help businesses with “capturing hard to find companies that aren’t in the news or raising capital.”

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