Walnut Insurance raises $4m to power embedded insurance for enterprise brands

By Edlyn Cardoza

Walnut Insurance, a technology company that provides infrastructure for embedded insurance, announced their $4 million seed round, with ATB Financial and NAventures, National Bank of Canada’s corporate venture capital arm, as the lead investors. Other investors include Harvest Venture Partners, Highline Beta, and N49P.

“Our seed raise is a testament to the continuing revolution inside the insurance industry,” said Derek Szeto, Co-founder and CEO of Walnut Insurance. “We are empowering partners to be able to offer innovative insurance products to millions of customers without the need for years of heavy investment or diversion of significant resources from other ongoing priorities. Embedded insurance is predicted to be a $3 trillion dollar market and Walnut is well positioned to be a leader in this industry.”

Walnut, a leader in embedded insurance, has broken down barriers that historically have prevented businesses from being able to build an insurance offering into their product. As brands look to build deeper relationships with customers and expand their revenue streams, Walnut provides the core infrastructure and access to a broad set of insurance products that can be embedded into or alongside consumer experiences, much like embedded payment and lending.

“The insurance industry is ready for disruption and Walnut has built a powerful platform that will close the coverage gaps and create meaningful value for millions of people,” said James Povitz, Principal at NAventures. “The partnerships and distribution channels Walnut has been able to acquire at this stage of their business is impressive and speaks to the need that Walnut’s fintech infrastructure is solving for partners and clients.”

With their API-driven distribution approach, Walnut has partnered with Neo Financial, one of the largest FinTechs in Canada, to help the company tap into the over $160 billion-dollar Canadian insurance market.

“We’re excited to be partnering with the team at Walnut, and to be a part of building a modern insurance infrastructure that can provide more meaningful and relevant insurance journeys to our consumers,” said Andrew Chau, Co-founder and CEO of Neo Financial. “We see this partnership as a means of more deeply engaging with our users, through a modern and convenient version of a process that has historically been time-consuming and laborious.”

In its digital-first approach, Walnut has flipped the insurance model to build an insurance era marked by accessibility and transparency. Driven to create a holistic insurance offering, Walnut delivers embedded life, home, and auto insurance journeys and access to leading health and wellness subscriptions. With this new funding round, Walnut will focus on further expanding its strategic partnerships across North America, delivering custom-embedded insurance programs that enable brands to build deeper relationships with their customers.