By Henry Ojelu

Octamile, an Insurtech company enabling insurance and non-insurance businesses to protect African consumers from financial loss, has come out of stealth mode with $500,000 in pre-seed funding.

The funding was led by EchoVC with participation from Fiat Ventures, Kesho VC, Trade X, Verraki Partners, Dale Mathias, Kyle Daley (Founding team member of Chime) and other local and international Angels.

Speaking on the launch, the Founder and CEO of Octamile, Gbenro Dara, said: “Insurance is one sector that has the power to elevate the economy, but only about 5 out of 100 Africans have any form of insurance protection. The industry has lagged in the use of technology to deliver better products and services.”

With a degree in insurance from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, Gbenro is a Member of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria.

“Our team has identified key areas where we add value and support the growth of
the Insurance ecosystem with data and technology by partnering with traditional
insurance businesses and non-insurance businesses,” he said

Gbenro cited the Access to Insurance Initiative – A2ii – (a global partnership working to
ensure that the world’s excluded and underserved have access to insurance) noting that insurance allows the worlds excluded and underserved to take control of their
lives and reduce their vulnerability against risks.

Speaking further, Gbenro said: “At Octamile, we believe in simplifying access to and reducing friction in the insurance experience to protect Africans from financial loss.

“Our digital insurance solution enables non-insurance businesses to offer Insurance as a feature in their already existing products.

“For Insurance providers, we are powering them with the data and technology to improve customer experience, reduce administrative costs and optimize the profitability of their insurance portfolio.

Describing his start-up as the operating system infrastructure for digital insurance in Africa, Gbenro noted that insurtech solution empowers insurance providers to provide a seamless claims experience and reduce administrative costs by integrating end-to-end claims management solutions into their existing systems and processes.

“Octamile’s end-to-end solution covers first notification of loss, remote inspections, rule-based decision making and payments”, he stated.

Highlighting other features of the platform, Gbenro added: ” We Increase the profitability of insurance portfolio by integrating data from diverse sources to establish better pricing
and risk profiling of your customers and their assets. Brokers, Banks, Fleet owners, Online Marketplaces can also leverage this data.

“Non-Insurance businesses and developers can boost revenues and increase the life-cycle value of existing customers by adding insurance by ‘default’ as a feature in their product or existing business, powered via our flexible and customisable APIs.

“Our goal over the next months will be to work closely with our partners, which include AXAMansard, and FirstBank, and onboard the dozens of insurers and startups on the waitlist ready to leverage the power of our solutions,” said Gbenro.

Vanguard News Nigeria