It may not be the sexiest example of industry disruption we ve seen, but Palo Alto startup Next Insurance plans to fix a major pain point for small businesses — the hassle of buying insurance.
The average business needs five to 10 different types of insurance to protect against everything from data breaches, to lawsuits filed against directors and officers, to employees getting hurt on the job, according to founder and CEO Guy Goldstein. Figuring out the right coverage is a slow and confusing undertaking, he said. Next Insurance, which announced $13 million in seed funding Tuesday, plans to automate the process. Small business owners will be able to answer questions online via a website or mobile app and receive a customized, price-optimized plan created by the Next Insurance algorithm.
Then you put in your credit card and within 15 minutes, you re done, Goldstein said.
Think Esurance or GEICO, but for your business. The company is targeting budding Silicon Valley startups, as well as lawyers, architects, hair salons and restaurants getting a business off the ground.
As an example of the problem he aims to fix, Goldstein said he started working on getting outside insurance for his own company six weeks ago — and the process still isn t done.
There s definitely a big need to revolutionize this space, he said.
Next Insurance s seed funding round was led by Zeev Ventures, TLV Partners and Ribbit Capital. The product is expected to roll out this spring. Goldstein and his co-founders, Nissim Tapiro and Alon Huri, were executives at mobile payments company Check when it was acquired by Intuit in 2004 for almost $400 million.
Photo: The Next Insurance co-founders Nissim Tapiro, Guy Goldstein and Alon Huri. (Next Insurance)
The post Next Insurance aims to make business insurance bearable appeared first on SiliconBeat.
