PayPal Ventures Backs $47 Million Fundraise for InsurTech Qoala

InsurTech Qoala has raised $47 million in a funding round led by PayPal Ventures and MassMutual Ventures. 

The Series C round, announced Wednesday (March 27), will let the Malaysia-based Qoala expand its embedded insurance business across Southeast Asia. 

“The investment will also empower Qoala to intensify its tech-driven initiatives, seamlessly integrate artificial intelligence across all channels, and elevate the experience of customers, agents, and partners,” PayPal said in a news release.

“Further, Qoala will leverage the funds to explore new products and channels for its agent platform, while accelerating growth by exploring strategic acquisitions and partnerships across all verticals,” PayPal added. 

Other recent PayPal Ventures investments include its participation earlier this month in local payments platform PPRO’s $93 million funding round. A week later, it took part in the $24 million Series B round for digital payments platform NX Technologies. 

PYMNTS looked at the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the insurance industry last month in an interview with Heather Wilson, CEO of CLARA Analytics.

“AI is the decision support for that adjuster that is dealing with some very complex claims,” said Wilson, who spoke with PYMNTS for the “AI Effect” series. “… The models never sleep, and they are there to help the adjustor by surfacing information that the human in the loop may not see with the human eye.”

Wilson said AI is to claim management as GPS navigation systems are to cars. Just as GPS systems offer real-time information and alternative routes to drivers, AI helps adjusters navigate complex cases, analyzing data, surfacing important information that might be overlooked by human claims adjusters.

“In the connected economy, InsurTech sprouted as a relatively new category that removed some of the friction between consumers and various types of coverage, from health plans to life insurance,” PYMNTS wrote in January. 

With AI, InsurTech could be ready to move beyond its first generation, in which companies didn’t have the chance to fully grow their products, Foxquilt CEO Mark Morissette told PYMNTS. 

“Now it’s time to think more about the customer,” he said. “You need to define that customer and then go and solve their problems. But at the same time, you need to generate a sustainable business model that generates underwriting profitability and build a smarter machine that facilitates solving customer problems.”