● Insuretech player Fedo raises $1 million in Pre-Series A funding from Fund II; Round led by Unicorn India Ventures; SEA Fund along with Ashish Mehrotra (Former Md CEO, Max Bupa) also participated
● Funds raised to be primarily used to enhance the computer vision capabilities for enhanced non-invasive identification of health risks usable in various use cases requiring health assessment and to co-create personalised insurance products.
● Fedo to focus on global expansion starting with South East Asia and Australia this year.
Bengaluru, NFAPost: Mumbai-based early-stage VC Fund house Unicorn India Ventures has announced its 5th investment from Rs 400 crore Fund II in Bangalore – based cutting edge Insuretech player Fedo.
Fredo helps build the new generation insuretech solution on an AI/ML platform that leverages the power of deep tech and medical research to automate underwriting in the health and life insurance sector.
The company has raised $1 million in a Pre Series A from UIV. The round saw participation from SEA fund alongwith Ashish Mehrotra (Former MD CEO, Max Bupa).
Fedo, founded in 2017 by Prasanth Madavana and Arun Mallavarapu, is spearheading the next generation of Artificial Intelligence-powered health insurance insights with partners around the globe bringing together a unique understanding of health risks and the required coverage combined with industry knowledge across three continents.
AI algorithms
It uses a cutting edge computer vision and AI algorithms to help insurers enhance sales, reduce costs and enrich the quality of their portfolio.
“Fedo Score” their proprietary AI based health score has been developed by medical professionals and data scientists using 250 plus medical studies, 1.5M claims and analysing over 50 million global health records.
Fedo Co-founder Prasanth Madavana says the company’s vision is to offer AI-backed solutions to insurance providers, which enables early identification of potential health risks by using non-invasive methods thereby reducing out of pocket expenditures of individuals and making insurance accessible, affordable and personalised.
Risk prediction
Apart from helping health and life insurance companies with data driven smart portfolio management, Fedo also supports population risk predictions, partnering with health departments of local governments in India and abroad.
Unicorn India Ventures Managing Partner Anil Joshi says India is one of the most under-insured countries in the World.
“A big reason for this is that many people may want to take insurance but they don’t know which product works for them or covers ailments. Fedo has the capability to deploy AI and assess your health related risks. With COVID situation entering into the community stage in India and coming back in the 2nd wave in other large countries, the awareness about getting a health cover is on the rise. Insurtech players like Fedo are positioned right to leverage this trend,” said Unicorn India Ventures Managing Partner Anil Joshi.
CoCo General Insurance
Fedo works with many marquee insurance players in India and globally. The Company recently onboarded Sachin Bansal backed CoCo General Insurance. Fedo achieved break-even last year and continues to be cash positive and a profitable startup.
Ashish Mehrotra, who turned an angel investor with Fedo, says Fedo’s AI enables the insurers to seamlessly on-board, track and manage product portfolios with customer-level insights and predictive models.
“This will significantly simplify and enhance profitability and lifetime value for the insurers,” said angel investor Ashish Mehrotra.
International accolades
FEDO’s technology has been globally recognised and has been the winner of various national and international accolades including the 10 companies selected globally by Tokyo Metropolitan Government to be introduced in Japan, and is the only Indian company to be selected in Accenture Fintech Innovation Lab APAC.
The Company takes data privacy and security seriously. The insurance providers only share the customer’s demographic data basis which the AI engine makes its recommendations. Name, age and other personally identifiable information is not shared with Fedo.
SEA Fund Managing Partner Manoj Kumar Agarwal says SEA Fund has a focus on Insurtech as we believe that digital technologies hold the promise of not only increasing customer convenience, but also enterprises’ reach over time by bringing down costs.
“Insurance penetration in India has some way to go and the sector is ready to embrace new age tech driven products. Fedo brings all these threads together and it’s unique risk scoring algorithm allows insurers to advise, upsell and cross sell products suited to the customer’s individual risk profile leading to personalised insurance products, which is the future of insurance,” said SEA Fund Managing Partner Manoj Kumar Agarwal.
Dynamic pricing
With the funds raised, Fedo is working on launching the world’s first ever image based underwriting platform this year which would enable insurance on boarding in less than 60 seconds. It is also working with a global player to dynamically price retail and group premiums and also plans to launch its operations in South East Asia and Australia this year
Bengaluru-based Fedo is a smart insurance for the new generation which has built an AI/ML platform that leverages the power of deep tech and medical research to automate underwriting in the health & life insurance sector. The AI/ML underwriting uses a combination of health risk and claim propensity scores to predict the risk of an individual for various diseases. Fedo helps individuals to keep score of their health, based on a number of questions answered and shows them variations in the health risk due to those changes, depicted through “Fedo Score” (credit score for health)
Unicorn India Ventures is a Mumbai-based VC that started in 2015 by Anil Joshi and Bhaskar Majumdar. The Fund has also launched a UK India cross border fund for funding UK startups looking to enter India and have invested in 7 UK startups. From its first Fund, UIV has invested in 18 companies like Inc42, Sequretek, Pharmarack, Genrobotics, NeuroEquilibrium, SmartCoin,Open Bank, Open app to name a few. Unicorn India has also announced Fund II, which is a Rs 400 crore fund launched in 2019. It has also marked its first close of Rs 90 cr and has announced 5 investments.
