High-End Home Insurance MGA Openly Secures $40M VC Round for National Expansion

December 17, 2020

Openly, an InsurTech MGA focused on high-end homeowners insurance, raised a $40 million round of venture capital from multiple investors. The new investment will fuel a national expansion, hiring and further technological development.

“The reception has been phenomenal,” Openly co-founder and CEO Ty Harris said in prepared remarks about his company’s growth so far. “We’ve spent very little on marketing and yet seen sales just take off.”

Advance Venture Partners led the Series B round, with participation from return investors including Gradient Ventures, Obvious Ventures, PJC, and Greenlight Re. In June – six months ago – Openly raised its $15 million Series A round.

Currently, Openly operates in six states, but its new cash infusion is expected to help it expand to most of the country by the end of 2021. As well, Openly said in its financing announcement that it will continue “to invest heavily in both the technology and the people that power insurance operations at scale.”

Openly describes its business model as using “next-generation data and technology to offer straightforward, customer-friendly home insurance policies.”

Openly, which launched in 2019 and is based in Boston, sells its products through independent agents who are able to generate “fully underwritten policies in seconds,” the company claims. As a result, Openly said, agents get more time to customize their clients’ coverage to meet individual needs.

Launched in late 2019 and based in Boston, Openly has more than 3,000 independent agents that offer its product to consumers.

Harris is a veteran of Liberty Mutual, where he focused on global consumer markets, according to his LinkedIn page.

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Matt Wielbut is a veteran of Goldman Sachs and was a founder of Elements Insurance, a Boston-based digital-first insurance brokerage acquired by Titan Insurance, according to his LinkedIn page.

Source: Openly