Funding updates

Policybazaar gets $75 million from Falcon EdgeRead for UAE business.

Online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar has raised an additional $75 Mn in a funding round led by Falcon Edge Capital to expand its presence in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Middle East region. The company’s CEO Sarbvir Singh confirmed the development without sharing further details about the round.

PolicyBazaar, which is managed by parent company PB Fintech (formerly Etechaces Marketing and Consulting Pvt. Ltd), has raised $690 Mn funding to date from marquee investors like Wellington Management, PremjiInvest, Tiger Global Management, Inventus Capital, Tencent Holdings and True North. The company had last raised $130 Mn from SoftBank at a valuation of $1.5 Bn.

The company is now preparing itself to list publicly via a $540 Mn (or INR 4,000 Cr) initial public offering (IPO) this year at a valuation of $3.5 Bn. It is currently underway to finalise merchant bankers, and at least six such bankers are expected to be given the mandate to manage the IPO.

Last July, co-founder and former CEO Yashish Dahiya had announced the company’s plans to go public by September 2021, with the aim to raise $250 Mn as a pre-IPO exercise. He had also elaborated that the company plans to list itself in India but was also open to the idea of dual listing if the Indian government approves.

PolicyBazaar is an online platform allowing users to life insurance and general insurance, which was founded in 2008 by IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad alumni Dahiya, Alok Bansal, and Avaneesh Nirjar. It operates two other sister companies — lending marketplace PaisaBazaar and health tech venture DocPrime.

The two companies — PolicyBazaar and PaisaBazaar — operating under the PB Fintech banner reported consolidated revenue of INR 854.7 Cr in the financial year that ended in March 2020, representing a 147% spike from FY2019’s INR 345.8 Cr. Its expenses grew by 33%, from INR 864 Cr to INR 1150 Cr in the same time period. Subsequently, the company’s loss narrowed about 12%, from INR 344 Cr to INR 304 Cr.

Online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar has raised an additional $75 Mn in a funding round led by Falcon Edge Capital to expand its presence in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Middle East region. The company’s CEO Sarbvir Singh confirmed the development without sharing further details about the round.

PolicyBazaar, which is managed by parent company PB Fintech (formerly Etechaces Marketing and Consulting Pvt. Ltd), has raised $690 Mn funding to date from marquee investors like Wellington Management, PremjiInvest, Tiger Global Management, Inventus Capital, Tencent Holdings, and True North. The company had last raised $130 Mn from SoftBank at a valuation of $1.5 Bn.

The company is now preparing itself to list publicly via a $540 Mn (or INR 4,000 Cr) initial public offering (IPO) this year at a valuation of $3.5 Bn. It is currently underway to finalize merchant bankers, and at least six such bankers are expected to be given the mandate to manage the IPO.

 

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