Mumbai-based Coverfox Insurance Broking Pvt. Ltd, operator of an eponymous online insurance brokerage, doubled its revenue in the year through March and shrank its loss after managing to control costs.
Gross revenue for 2016-17 jumped to Rs 6.12 crore from Rs 2.64 crore the year before, according to Coverfox’s filings with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Operational revenue, or income from commission and sale of services, jumped to Rs 4.20 crore from Rs 1.94 crore.
Net loss narrowed to Rs 31.85 crore from Rs 35.07 crore, as total expenses rose just a tad to Rs 37.98 crore from Rs 37.71 crore. Staff costs increased 6% to Rs 6.20 crore while other expenses fell marginally to Rs 31.52 crore. Other expenses included Rs 22.01 crore in advertising costs.
Coverfox co-founder Devendra Rane didn’t respond to an email seeking comment till the time of filing this article.
Meanwhile, Coverfox parent Glitterbug Technologies Pvt. Ltd said in its consolidated financial statements that gross revenue in 2016-17 surged 70% to Rs 6.53 crore from Rs 3.85 crore the year before. Operational revenue climbed to Rs 6.20 crore from Rs 2.58 crore.
Coverfox was founded in 2013 by IIT Bombay graduate Devendra Rane and MICA Ahmedabad alumnus Varun Dua. It offers health insurance, car insurance, home insurance and travel insurance online. Using its proprietary technology and an algorithm-based platform, users can compare and buy a range of plans across top insurance companies.
The company is estimated to have raised a little over $22 million from investors including New York-based venture fund Transamerica Ventures, Accel Partners and SAIF Partners. The fintech startup also counts Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy’s Catamaran Ventures, Infosys co-founder Senapathy Gopalakrishnan’s Pratithi Investment Trust, and Venkatram Krishnan and Subba Rao of NuVentures among its investors.
In May, the company had mopped up Rs 49 crore in two tranches of a Series C round and was all set to raise additional capital from Rajeev Gupta, founder of investment banking firm Arpwood Capital.
In August last year, Coverfox floated Acko General Insurance Co. Ltd, which later became an independent entity. Coverfox co-founder Dua quit the company to focus his attention on Acko. According to earlier regulatory filings, Rane was also initially associated with Acko and resigned as the company’s director in November last year.
In May this year, Acko raised Rs 195 crore in seed funding from the same set of investors who had put in money in Coverfox—SAIF, Accel, Murthy, Gopalakrishnan and the NuVentures executives. Acko’s other investors included veteran investment banker Hemendra Kothari of DSP Blackrock, Arpwood’s Gupta and Hexaware Technologies founder Atul Nishar.