A Schaumburg insuretech startup looking to simplify the underwriting process has raised a new round of financing from some coastal venture capital firms.
DataCubes announced Thursday that it raised $15.2 million in a Series B round led by Palm Drive Capital, a New York-based venture capital and growth equity fund that invests in software and internet companies. Other investors include Altos Ventures, NFP Ventures, Stage 2 Capital, MPK Equity Partners, and existing investors such as, Seven Capital and MK Capital.
This round brings DataCubes total funding to $18 million, said Kuldeep Malik, DataCubes’ co-founder and CEO.
Founded in 2016, DataCubes has created a platform for insurance companies that allows them to make underwriting decisions more quickly based on risk data.
“We are giving an end-to-end underwriting decision platform,” Malik said. “That means we are not just providing the data, we are providing all the insights. We also include some of the manual stuff that underwriters do.”
Malik said the new financing will primarily be used to hire 50 new employees across customer success, technology and data departments. To accommodate the growth, the startup is moving into a bigger, 12,000-square-foot office in Schaumburg that can hold up to 120 people. DataCubes employs about 50 people now.
The startup also has a downtown Chicago outpost where about 10 employees are based out of, Malik said.
“I’m a big fan of building things within Chicago because it’s a great place, where you have lots of talent,” Malik said. “It’s absolutely a great pace to build your company and hopefully [we] add to the big unicorns that have come out of Chicago.”
DataCubes is nearing 50 clients, including Columbia Insurance Group, Tangram and Synergy Coverage Solutions. Malik wouldn’t comment on whether DataCubes is profitable but said the company is focused on market and customer acquisition.
“We are grabbing the attention of insurance companies to be part of their evolution as they go forward,” Malik said.
DataCubes is just one of several venture-backed insuretech startups in Chicago. Kin Insurance, a home insurance provider, raised $47 million in August. Snapsheet, which lets people file automobile insurance claims via their smartphone, raised $29 million in May. And at the beginning of this year, Clearcover, an AI-powered car insurance platform, raised $43 million.
