Avanta Ventures, the Mountain View, CA-based venture capital arm of CSAA Insurance Group, closed its early-stage Fund II, at $225M.
This close brings its assets under management to over $300M.
Led by Sanjiv Parikh, managing partner, David Li and Pooja Shah, Avanta Ventures focuses on investment sectors such as insurtech, mobility, and risk-adjacent sectors such as fintech, cybersecurity, smart home, and applied artificial intelligence. Prioritizing innovative business models that attract emerging customer segments, the firm invests $1M-$10M in early-stage companies at the Seed, Series A and Series B stages, with the ability to lead deals, while also reserving significant capital for follow-on investment to continue to support its portfolio.
Fund I was a $75M fund in 2017 focusing on early-stage companies in the Seed and Series A stages. The Fund I portfolio includes companies such as:
- Cowbell, which delivers standalone, state-admitted cyber insurance. Its AI-powered continuous underwriting platform maps threats and risk exposure to coverages and enables agents to deliver policies tailored to the unique needs of each customer in less than five minutes.
- Kin Insurance, which is an insurtech startup that uses public data and machine learning to simplify homeowners insurance, leveraging thousands of data points to recommend the appropriate coverage for every home.
- RapidSOS, which provides an emergency platform connecting IoT devices to first responders and 911 dispatch centers across the United States.
In addition to its venture fund investments, Avanta Ventures operates an accelerator called Avanta Studios. The accelerator works with pre-seed companies to help them achieve key milestones, such as product market fit, customer and partner engagement, and initial institutional venture financing. Numerous Avanta Studios participants have gone on to raise venture capital, including Delos Insurance, which received seed investment from Avanta Ventures.
FinSMEs
20/09/2022