Apollo Insurance Solutions Ltd., a Toronto-based online insurance platform, said it has closed an oversubscribed $13.5 million Series A financing round.

The funding exceeded its original $4 million target.

Gravitas Securities Inc. led the financing, which also included Trisura Group Ltd., an international specialty insurance provider operating in the surety, risk solutions, corporate insurance and reinsurance segments of the market. Liberty Mutual became an investor as well.

Launched in April 2019, Apollo claims to offer largest selection of online insurance in Canada. Plans call for using the cash infusion to fuel the company’s expansion of insurance offerings to become the “everything store” for small business and personal insurance, by way of thousands of digitally enhanced agents and embedded finance partnerships.

“We’ve created an entirely modern insurance purchasing experience — digital, instant, and paperless — in line with everything else in our daily lives,” said Jeff McCann, founder and CEO of Toronto-based Apollo, which is a managing general agent.

Apollo’s proprietary technology platform, the Apollo Exchange, transacts insurance business in real time, leverages extensive data and sophisticated algorithms to quote, collect payment, create and deliver policies. Thousands of types of small businesses and individuals are able to buy online without human intervention. Unlike traditional paper-based processes, Apollo leverages extensive data and algorithms to quote, collect payment and issue policies for thousands of types of small business and individuals without human intervention.

This investment follows Apollo’s appointment of Tracey Swain as chief financial officer and Marco Andolfatto as chief underwriting officer. Swain previously served as CFO for O2E Brands, a privately held and parent company of 1-800-Got-Junk?, founded in Vancouver, BC. Previously, Swain served as vice president of Internal Audit for Lululemon and was vice president of Corporate Finance for Adidas. Andolfatto was chief strategy officer at Totten Insurance Group and managing director at Premier Insurance Managers, a Canadian wholesale insurance company.

Source: Apollo Insurance Solutions Ltd.

*A version of this story ran previously in our sister publication Insurance Journal.