Pineapple has been accepted into The Hartford Insurtech Hub more than a year and a month after the peer-to-peer insurance tech startup raised R5.2m from Lireas Holdings, the strategic investment arm of Hannover-Re Group Africa.
The Johannesburg-based startup will get to work with top Insurance companies in the US such as Travellers, Aetna, USAA, The Hartford and Cigna. Hartford Connecticut has long been described as being to insurance what Silicon Valley is to Venture capital.
Pineapple will participate in this accelerator program in an attempt to partner with Insurance companies in the USA.
10 Startups were selected to be part of the accelerator including 2 from Canada, 1 from Switzerland, 2 from Australia, 4 from the USA and Pineapple making up the only African participant.
According to co-founder Marnus van Heerden,“ The ecosystem they have created is amazing. Demonstrating what a public, private partnership should look like. The mayor of Hartford was there, their head of regulation was their, they even have a state run venture capital arm. To back this up they invited all the major insurance companies, VC’s and experts from across the board ranging from IP lawyers to design experts. “
This is all in a drive by the state of Connecticut to position themselves as the global hub for Insurtech business. There are two factors that position them perfectly to become this insurtech hub. they are already the insurance hub of the USA. They are very close to both New York and Boston. Giving them access to resources from these regions without incurring the high cost of living there.
Pineapple is the world’s first insurance network. They allow members to insure things in the snap of a picture and keep all unused premium. Reinsurance guarantees that claims will always be paid even if there is not enough money in the network.
They will participate in this 4 month accelerator from February 2019 with the goal to launch their product into market in the USA.
Pineapple recently made new when they became the first insurtech accepted into Google’s accelerator and have recently won the award for the best insurtech Globally be the digital insurer in Singapore.