Insurtech Functional Finance has raised $8 million in a seed round plus a SAFE of $2 million. A SAFE is typically a commitment for equity at a discount on a future date following an outlined event.
The funding was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Walkabout Ventures, and Altai Ventures. It was also noted that with Hank Greenberg’s C.V. Starr Insurance participated in the funding round.
Future Finance aims to provide technology to the insurance industry, which tends towards utilizing a “convoluted operational process.” The company states that its tech stack easily integrates with an insurance firm’s platform to automate services such as billing, reporting, payables, and more. Functional Finance also provides services for reinsurers, carriers, MGAs, wholesalers, and brokers to see the same thing in one place in real time.
The company was co-founded in 2021 by Rashmi “Rush” Melgiri and Tony DeGangi. Melgiri previously co-founded CoverWallet and DeGangi was former CTO of Renew.
Melgiri says his experience at his last startup made him realize how antiquated the insurance industry is today.
“You can build fast-growing businesses and take payments online but reconciling that on the back end is often overlooked and deprioritized, leaving it to intensive manual labor. There was a tremendous opportunity to create an automated technology solution that will make the industry move faster, and the experience should be more efficient and positive for clients and customers.”
Rick Yang, Partner, Head of Technology Investing at NEA, said the Functional Finance team has created “breakthrough technology” that will generate positive outcomes for the insurance industry.
“Rashmi, Tony and the Functional Finance team bring valuable experience and a deep understanding of industry-specific opportunities, and we are thrilled to partner with them to modernize insurance data and reporting.”
