TechCrunch opens on the founder. I nearly skipped straight to the numbers. Vishal Sankhla ran product at Ethos, the digital life insurer that went public earlier this year, and worked at Facebook and Uber before that. In late 2023 Sankhla left and started Outmarket, a startup that, in TechCrunch's words, "uses AI to help insurance agencies and brokers automate all their tedious paperwork."
The pitch fits in two sentences. "Ninety-five percent of insurance in the U.S. and worldwide is still sold through [human] agents, and when you look at sort of like how the process is today, it's very manual," Sankhla told TechCrunch. And the line every founder uses: "This is a huge opportunity given how massive this industry is."
I have heard that sentence in every market I have covered. It tells you nothing.
The quote worth keeping is about commercial cover. "There are over 250 different types of coverages that are out there, depending on what business you are and what risk you have and what you want to cover," Sankhla said. "For each of those, the process is very different. The application forms you need to fill out, the documents you need to read."
Picture one broker with one mid-sized client who needs general liability, workers' compensation and directors and officers cover, which means three forms, three sets of wording and three insurers asking different questions about the same business. That is the product. TechCrunch says the software helps "brokers quickly evaluate and recommend the best policies, so they can focus on work that requires a human touch."
If you own a brokerage, read the next line twice. TechCrunch names two rivals: "Other startups trying to help insurance brokers include Fulcrum AI and FurtherAI." Three funded startups now want your paperwork. You can push on price.
Outmarket says more than 300 agencies use it. A quarter of the top 100 are among them, according to the company, and that count covers the period since a new product went live 14 months ago, and I suspect that is not long in a business where one account decision can wait for a renewal date. Sankhla's line on that pace: "For insurance, which is typically not a fast-moving industry, it's quite fast growth."
Every one of those numbers comes from the company. One reporter carried them, no filing sits behind them, and nobody outside Outmarket has checked them in anything I could find.
TechCrunch writes that Outmarket "is set to announce" a $34.5 million Series B . SignalFire led the round, TechCrunch says. Fika Ventures, Permanent Capital Ventures, TTV Capital and Dash Fund joined it. The Series A was $17 million, four months before. Disclosed funding is $51.5 million.
The valuation is where I slow down. The only source for $335 million is "a person familiar with the investment", and the company gave no figure. I went looking for the Series A valuation and found nothing at all. So the four-month step-up stays unknown. It was the number I wanted most, because a round this close to the last one can mean a strong quarter or an investor who wanted in badly. I do not know which, and the price gap between the two rounds is what would tell you.
My own division, rough: $335 million over 300 agencies is about $1.1 million per customer.
A quarter of the top 100 is about 25 agencies. Good, if it holds. I cannot tell how Outmarket counts a customer, whether one office of a national broker trying the tool counts as the whole firm. The article says nothing about revenue either. With no revenue there is no multiple, and I am not sure the $335 million means much yet.