Boston-based insurtech Openly secures more than $7m in funding
While there has been no official announcement as of yet, congratulations are in order for the Boston-based insurtech Openly. The start-up, founded by former Liberty Mutual Chief Product Officer and Actuary, Ty Harris and Matt Wielbut, a former VP of Technology for Goldman Sachs, reported that it had raised more than $7 million in funding on its official Form D with the SEC in 2019. Great news for an insurtech that sees “…the future with independent insurance agents as the disruptors, rather than the disrupted.”
Since its official launch last year, Openly which focuses on selling beautifully simple insurance through trusted advisors, has been going from strength-to-strength. The company which participated in the nationally-acclaimed accelerators, as part of the 2018 Techstars class as well as the 2018 Plug & Play Insurtech batch, also was named as one of the 50 Boston Startups to Watch in 2019 by Built-in-Boston.
In March of 2018, Agency Checklists had the opportunity to interview Co-Founder Ty Harris about how the idea for his start-up came about and what he had planned for the future. For those interested in revisiting that profile, please refer to our March 6, 2018 article, “‘Openly’ For Business: A Massachusetts Insurtech Betting on Independent Agents As The Future.'”
Lemonade files with the Massachusetts Division of Insurance
Just to keep our readers up to date, it looks like Lemonade will be making a move into Massachusetts sometime in 2019. By law, any company looking to enter the Massachusetts insurance marketplace must place an ad in a printed publication announcing their filing with the Division of Insurance. Here is what appeared in the May 3rd edition of The Standard:
As always, Agency Checklists will keep our readers posted on any new developments with regard to this tidbit of news. For those interested in reviewing the pros and cons of Lemonade’s way of selling insurance, this June 2018 InsurOp-Ed from Bill Wilson, will give you some food for thought about the issue: “InsurOp Ed: Reverse Engineering – Making Lemons from Lemonade?”
