Goji Rumors True; New CEO moves to Boston from NYC
Boston-based Goji Insurance has a new CEO. The announcement, which came via the company’s Linkedin page (their website is not even updated yet), officially introduced Peter Breitstone as the company’s new CEO.
According to Mr. Breitstone’s Linkedin profile, prior to joining Goji, he was the President of his own insurance consulting firm, Breistone & Co. Ltd, for 24 years. In addition to consulting, he also spent two years as the Executive Vice President of the insurtech start-up Insureon, as well as holding prior positions such as Senior Vice President, Enhanced Market Dynamics with Zurich and the President and CEO, ASPN and APRM at AON.
As for former Goji CEO Steve Kezirian, as of July 2017, he has been the CEO & Co-Founder of Full Potential Solutions, which touts itself as “…a new kind of performance-based outsourcing firm that puts culture and employees first, because we believe that happy, fulfilled teams accomplish great things.”
Boston-based TrueMotion Gets $2 million more in funding
According to a recent report from CB Insights, Boston-based TrueMotion (formerly Censio) has just raised an additional $2 million in equity funding via its most recent SEC filing. The company is already backed by investors Bain Capital, LakeStar, and General Catalyst.
For those who are unfamiliar with TrueMotion, it is a Cambridge-based telematics company whose mission involves “…combining easy-to-use technology and data science to make it easier for people to become safer drivers.”
Insurers already working with TrueMotion include American Family Insurance, Progressive, and MetLife (no Mass.-based insurers, for now though). Here is a screenshot of their website. Click on it to go directly there.
Cambridge’s BitSight partners with CyberGRX
Two cyber leaders have joined forces. Cambridge-based BitSight has announced that its security ratings capabilities will now be embedded with the CyberGRX Exchange, the world’s first marketplace for cyber risk security information. As a result, the partnership will create the first to provide a 360-degree view of third-party risk.
“Enterprises today require access to accurate, continuous and actionable information about third-party cyber risk,” said Jacob Olcott, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at BitSight. “CyberGRX helps to solve that problem for companies across the world, and our security ratings provide the unique, objective data that organizations need to scale their third-party risk programs and make more informed business decisions.”
“BitSight is a leader of the security ratings market, and their ability to continuously rate the security performance of third parties from an outside-in perspective will strengthen the CyberGRX Exchange,” said Fred Kneip, CEO, CyberGRX. “Combining their proven non-intrusive approach to evaluating risk and security performance with the inside-out view our platform provides is a powerful proposition for customers: a comprehensive, continuous, 360-degree view of third-party cyber risk exposure.”
The companies noted in their joint announcement that according to research from Gartner, “By 2020, 75 percent of Fortune Global 500 companies will treat vendor risk management as a board-level initiative to mitigate brand and reputation risk.” The integration between CyberGRX and BitSight enables customers to get the most comprehensive view of the real risk posed by their third parties.”
Green Tree Insurance Signs Up With Swyfft
Swyfft has a new Massachusetts insurance agency within its ranks. Green Tree Insurance announced via its twitter feed (thanks to Coverager for pointing it out) that it can now write policies with Swyfft via the insurtech’s one-click quoting system for homeowner’s insurance.
Massachusetts insurance agencies that are interested in learning more about the company, might want to read our in-depth August 29, 2017 interview with Swyfft co-Founder Sean Maher here, “New Insurtech Homeowner Carrier, Swyfft, Quotes In Seconds For Independent Agents And Writes Coastal and Urban Risks.”
A tale of two Zs…
This week two different insurtechs, both starting with a “Z”, had two very different stories to share. The first, Zenefits, has announced its plans to leave the insurance brokerage business and to focus exclusively on becoming an all-in-one HR tool for small businesses. In the words of Zenefits new CEO, Jay Fulcher, “Our focus is on being a SaaS company, and not a broker,” he said.” To read more about Zenefits plans and its long complicated history, check out Owen’s in-depth look this week at what went wrong at one of the first “insurance disruptors”.
The second “Z” stands for The Zebra, an auto insurance comparison startup, which has just raised $40 million led by Accel Partners, bringing the insurtech’s grand total in funding to $61.5 million. Former Kayak president Keith Melnick has also been brought on as the new CEO of the platform.
Left to right: Joshua Dziabiak (COO), Keith Melnick (CEO), Adam Lyons (Founder & Chairman) of The Zebra (PRNewsfoto/The Zebra)
“From day one we set out to make insurance ‘black and white,’ and our team is making a huge impact in driving this industry forward,” The Zebra Founder and Chairman Adam Lyons said. “There is no shortage of interest in the insurance space right now, and we felt Accel was the right partner and aligned with our vision of creating something big. When we met Keith, we knew instantly that we found the talent to help take this company to new heights.”
While neither of these two companies are based in Massachusetts, we still thought this might be of interest to our readers…