Strategic Investors Include IA Capital, Nationwide
Certificial, the real-time certificate of insurance (COI) issuance and compliance management platform, announced that they have completed an oversubscribed $5.8 million round of Series A funding. Investors include IA Capital, a New York-based private investment firm specializing in Insurtech and Fintech as the lead investor, Nationwide, Cofounders Capital, Fin VC, and Cameron Ventures.
“Together, we are transforming a process and opening up a whole new world of possibilities to stakeholders.”
Certificial is the first platform designed to eliminate pain points for all stakeholders involved in the COI exchange process, including agents and brokers, the insured, and the requestor, by enabling dynamic certificates of insurance using real-time data.
In combination with the funding, Certificial has also launched a partnership with the Property and Casualty Insurance Business of EXL, a leading operations management and analytics company, to provide additional automation for all stakeholders.
In Q1 of 2021, Certificial welcomed over 6,000 new agencies and brokers to the platform. As evidenced by Nationwide’s investment in the company, carrier adoption of Certificial is quickly ramping up. The platform supports tens of thousands of corporate users, including several leading U.S. companies from all industries, that can now monitor their suppliers’ insurance coverage in real-time, without the administrative burden and cost.
Peter Teresi, Certificial co-founder and CEO, said, “We’re thrilled to have a terrific team of strategic investors which each bring their own unique value and ability to accelerate growth.” Teresi, former CTO at ACORD, adds, “Together, we are transforming a process and opening up a whole new world of possibilities to stakeholders.”
“Businesses are focused on increasing their digital footprint and Certificial is filling the demand for continuous compliance monitoring,” Teresi said. “Our platform is designed to bring operational efficiency and automation to all stakeholders. At the same time, having access to real-time coverage information enables companies to make more informed decisions, which further protects the financial interest of all parties.”
Matt Perlman, Partner at IA Capital, said, “We are thrilled to be partnering with Pete and the whole Certificial team as they overcome a major pain point for the commercial insurance industry and businesses of all types. We’ve been incredibly impressed by their technical capabilities, industry savvy and the dynamic, frictionless platform they are building to connect stakeholders throughout the insurance verification process.”
“Business owners need to be able to verify that their partners, contractors and vendors are properly insured quickly and conveniently,” said Tony Fenton, Nationwide’s Vice President of Commercial Lines Underwriting and Product. “Nationwide believes Certificial’s digital technology will provide a level of speed, ease, and automation efficiency that will benefit both agencies and insureds, thus freeing them up to focus on other areas of their business.”
Raghav Jaggi, Senior Vice President and Global Insurance F&A and P&C Co-Leader at EXL, says, “We are excited to partner with Certificial. Together, we look forward to bringing to our clients an end-to-end certificate of insurance solution to service requestors in real-time, including certificate issuance, coverage monitoring and compliance management across brokers, carriers and requestors.”
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