This article was originally published by our sister publication the Boston Business Journal.
Google’s venture fund Gradient Ventures has added another Massachusetts company to its collection of startups using artificial intelligence to tackle today’s challenges.
Gradient led a $7.65 million seed round in Openly Inc., a Techstars Boston alumn that is applying AI to the home insurance market. The company announced the deal on Tuesday.
“What I loved about [Gradient] is that the team really took the opportunity and the time to understand Openly,” Ty Harris, founder and CEO of Openly, said. “They didn’t come in … having an amazing insurance encyclopedic knowledge, but they did their homework and very quickly could repeat back to us what we’re doing, and even start throwing in new ideas.”
Harris co-founded Openly with Matt Wielbut, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs, in 2017. Before starting Openly, Harris spent 12 years at insurance giant Liberty Mutual.
Based in Back Bay with a team of 12, Openly uses AI to generate “firm” home insurance quotes and selling the resulting policies through a network of independent insurance agents, who earn an average 15 percent commission on each deal, according to Harris. Quotes can be generated in seconds, Harris said, pulling data about houses from multiple sources.
“What’s the roof made of? What’s the condition of the roof? The way artificial intelligence or, even more precisely, machine learning factors into this is in helping to decide … what is the level of risk we expect from this house,” Harris said.
Openly software uses sources such as county records, current and prior home listings and aerial photos (provided by third parties), Harris explained. The software collects separate pieces of information, from the buyer’s claim history to the elevation of the property, and translates them into a price for insurance, saving time to both customers and agents, according to Harris.
Openly plans to grow its team to 14 by adding two new service team members by year end. Geographically, the company is hoping to expand its services to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Tennessee in the next few months.
Gradient primarily invests in early-stage companies. Other Massachusetts tech startups Gradient Ventures has invested in are Boston-based Botkeeper, which says it can automate accounting processes such as closing the books at the end of a quarter and managing invoices, and Cambridge-based Wise Systems, which uses AI to optimize the routing of delivery fleets.
Before launching Gradient Ventures in 2017, Google never had an investment effort aimed at a specific type of technology such as artificial intelligence, Axios reported. Over the years, the firm has grown its portfolio to over 20 early-stage companies based in the U.S. and Canada applying AI to various fields, from radiology to American English accent training.
