A new Evanston startup that helps insure fine jewelry and watches has raised a seed round of funding to help it grow.
BriteCo announced Wednesday that it has raised $2 million from investors, including Brian Spaly, the founder of Trunk Club, and Jeff Taylor, the former chairman and CEO at Cole Taylor Bank.
The startup was founded in 2017 but officially launched to the public today. It partners with jewelers to help shoppers insure their fine jewelry and watches at the point of sale, allowing jewelers to add a new source of revenue. The startup offers verified appraisals and immediate replacement coverage by HDI Global, a top insurance carrier.
To make the insuring process as simple as possible for consumers, BriteCo’s coverage has no deductible, offers a streamlined claims experience, and automatically updates protection each year using price analytics and predictive models. BriteCo says it's licensed in nearly every state.
BriteCo’s Founder and CEO Dustin Lemick, whose family has owned and operated Chicago jewelry retailers for more than 60 years, has 13 years of retail jewelry experience himself. With the new funding, BriteCo says it plans to add new features to its appraisal management system, and build out its sales and marketing teams.
“As a third-generation jeweler, my family and I have a long history delighting customers and helping them celebrate moments of joy in their lives,” Lemick said in a statement. “But the jewelry buyer is changing rapidly. Millennials now represent the largest jewelry buying demographic, and their expectations are different from those of prior generations.”
Cover, a San Francisco startup that allows users to insure just about anything by taking a photo of it, also offers simplified jewelry insurance. It has raised $27 million since launching in 2016, according to Crunchbase.
