Insurance verification startup TrustLayer lands $15.1M

TrustLayer, an AI-powered platform working to digitize insurance verification, today announced that it closed a $15.1 million series A round led by Craft Ventures with participation from Abstract Ventures, Box Group, Propel Venture Partners, NFP Ventures, Sure Ventures, and PruVen Capital. According to a press release, the company plans to put the proceeds toward hiring across sales, marketing, and engineering teams, as well as development of its live digital proof of coverage solution and integrations with insurance carrier systems of record.

Research shows that 75% of U.S. businesses are underinsured. In addition to risk, the current process is costly for insurers and the companies requesting verification: 200,000 proof of coverage requests are made daily in the U.S., imposing significant resource and administrative costs.

TrustLayer’s solution is a product that leverages robotic process automation (RPA) and AI to automatically verify the insurance and licenses of vendors, suppliers, borrowers, and tenants. The company’s RPA automates tasks traditionally done by a human, using software robots that follow a set of rules and interact with business systems via user interfaces.

Tracking insurance requests

Founded in 2018 by John Fohr and Vincenzo Acinapura, TrustLayer — a graduate of insurtech accelerator program BrokerTech Ventures — enables customers to verify coverages, check exclusions, and get insight into insurance validity in real time. Companies can use the platform to manage vendor requirements like W9s, attestations, and other contracts while creating new compliance goals for information that they want to verify.

“Insurance helps mitigate risk. For businesses, insurance plays a critical role in the durability of its operations. The problem is no one is exactly sure who’s covered and by how much — we’re still swapping poorly scanned PDFs and faxes to prove outdated coverage,” Craft Ventures partner Brian Murray said in a statement. “TrustLayer fixes this. Their technology automates the collection and verification of insurance, helping companies and their partners accurately assess risk and avoid business interruption.”

TrustLayer has conducted pilots with Procore, Graham Company, Liberty Mutual, and Nationwide, and the company claims it’s now working with “dozens” of the largest brokers and carriers in the U.S. in industries spanning construction, property management, sports, and hospitality. Some of these brokers both invested in TrustLayer and elected to become sales channel partners, reselling the startup’s service to their own customers.

“It’s clear that verification of insurance and business credentials is a pain point for millions of businesses, which is why we have seen such enthusiastic support for TrustLayer’s secure, automated solution,” Fohr said in a press release. “We are especially proud to have such significant backing from a top-tier SaaS fund like Craft Ventures as well as some of the top insurance brokers in the country, a tremendous industry validation for our technology. We look forward to continuing this momentum with the support of our investors.”

Digital transformations brought about by the pandemic are driving the global insurtech segment to new heights. In the first half of 2021, insurtech startups raised $7.4 billion, surpassing the $7.1 billion raised for all of 2020 by more than $300 million, according to CB Insights. Grand View Research projects that the market will grow 48.8% from its current $2.72 billion peak by 2028.