Africa’s insurance infrastructure provider, Curacel has raised $3 million in seed funding to expand venture.
The seed funding round was led by top executives from Covergenius, Zooper, and pie insurance, as well as other participants such as Pioneer fund, Olive Tree Capital, Blue Point Capital Partners, Tencent, Y combination, and AAF management and Elefund, James Park, Olugbenga “GB” Agboola (flutterwave), Babs Ogundeyi, and other strategic investors.
Curacel revealed that the funds raised will be used to support its expansion into North Africa, starting with Egypt and Morocco, and also broaden its presence into other parts of the continent to provide solutions to healthcare challenges.
The startup also aims to drive insurance penetration in emerging markets via APIs enabling insurers to connect with digital distribution channels and administer their claims.
Speaking on the funds raised, the company’s CEO and Co-Founder Henry Mascot said, “we are bullish on the potential of the right technology in the right places to close the protection gap across Africa and emerging markets. It is an exciting time for us as we secure the capital to deliver the vision and onboard the people who have built these technologies at scale in more mature markets, and we are looking forward to delivering more technology solutions to drive up insurance inclusion”.
Investors King understands that the Co-founders of Curacel intended to make it an electronic health information management platform for healthcare providers, enabling clinics to digitize and manage paper records, appointments, patent communications, and so on, but they realized a much bigger problem facing healthcare, particularly in the area of insurance.
Founded in 2019 by Henry Mascot and John Dada, Curacel is an insurance infrastructure provider used by companies such as AXA Mansard and Liberty Health. The startup automates the insurance claims process, allowing staff to process claims volumes quickly and efficiently, and automatically vets claim to detect fraud, waste, and abuse.
The Nigerian insurance startup works with more than 5,000 service providers across its eight markets, and also claims to have processed more than $100 million worth of deals since inception.
The company revealed that last year, it grew its transaction volume by 600% and increased its revenue by 500%. It generates revenue by charging an annual fee for claim processing and fraud detection. It also sets take rates on premiums and charges businesses for using its APIs.
