News Update

PolicyBazaar To File For IPO And Aims To Raise $800 M

• ByAyushi Ray     |    August 2, 2021

One of India’s largest online insurance companies PolicyBazaar to file for IPO and aims to raise $800 M. It is the fourth startup in the past two months from the South Asian market to explore public markets. PolicyBazaar said it is looking to raise $504 million by issuing new shares while the rest will be driven by sale of shares by existing investors. The 12-year-old startup is backed by SoftBank, Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, and InfoEdge and said it may consider raising about $100 million in a pre-IPO round. Softbank plans to sell shares worth over $250 million, while PolicyBazaar founders are looking to sell shares worth $52.7 million, they said in the papers. PolicyBazaar serves as an aggregator that allows users to compare and buy policies, across categories including life, health, travel, auto and property — from dozens of insurers on its website without having to go through conventional agents. It operates in India as well as the Middle East.

In India only a fraction of the nation’s 1.3 billion people currently have access to insurance and some analysts say that digital firms could prove crucial in bringing these services to the masses. According to rating agency ICRA, insurance products had reached less than 3% of the population as of 2017. An average Indian makes about $2,100 in a year, according to the World Bank. ICRA estimated that of those Indians who had purchased an insurance product, they were spending less than $50 on it in 2017. “India’s life insurance market is expected to grow at 18.8% p.a. to reach ₹ 31.9 trillion (US$ 425 billion) in FY2030, driven by favorable macro indicators, rising awareness towards financial products and services, digitization and simplification of products and processes, online channels for distributions, innovations and customizations in products and favorable government policies and regulatory push,” the startup said in the papers.

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