Bengaluru's Fedo Bags $1 Mn In Pre-Series A Round Led By Unicorn India Ventures The startup will utilize the fresh capital in launching its image-based underwriting platform this year which would enable insurance on boarding in less than 60 seconds

Bengaluru-based Fedo, an insurtech startup, on Tuesday raised $1 million in a pre-Series A round from Unicorn India Ventures. The round also saw participation from SEA fund along with Ashish Mehrotra.

The startup will utilize the fresh capital in launching its image-based underwriting platform this year which would enable insurance on boarding in less than 60 seconds. It is also working with a global player to dynamically price retail and group premiums and also plans to launch its operations in southeast Asia and Australia this year.

Founded in 2017 by Prasanth Madavana and Arun Mallavarapu the startup is built on artificial intelligence and machine learning. It leverages on deep tech and medical research to automate underwriting in the health and life insurance sector. The AI/ML underwriting uses a combination of health risk and claim propensity scores to predict the risk of an individual for various diseases.The startup helps individuals to keep score of their health, based on a number of questions answered and shows them variations in the health risk due to those changes, depicted through "Fedo Score".

With its AI algorithms, Fedo helps insurers enhance sales, reduce costs and increase the quality of their portfolio.

Commenting on the startup, Prasanth Madavana, co-founder, Fedo, said, "Our vision is to offer AI-backed solutions to insurance providers, which enables early identification of potential health risks by using non invasive methods thereby reducing out of pocket expenditures of individuals and making insurance accessible, affordable and personalised."

Mumbai-based early stage investor Unicorn India Ventures invested in Fedo from its INR 400 crore Fund II that was announced in 2019.This investment marks the fifth investment from Fund II.

Manoj Kumar Agarwal, managing partner, SEA Fund, said, "SEA Fund has a focus on Insurtech as we believe that digital technologies hold the promise of not only increasing customer convenience, but also enterprises' reach over time by bringing down costs. Insurance penetration in India has some way to go and the sector is ready to embrace new age tech driven products. Fedo brings all these threads together and it's unique risk scoring algorithm allows insurers to advise, upsell and cross sell products suited to the customer's individual risk profile leading to personalised insurance products, which is the future of insurance"