California-headquartered, homeowners focused-insurtech Hippo has received a $350 million investment from Mitsui Sumitomo, a subsidiary of MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings.
As part of the deal, the corporate venture capital fund of MS&AD will join Hippo’s board of directors as an “observer.”
Additionally, Hippo and Mitsui Sumitomo plan on signing a reinsurance treaty, with the latter taking on a portion of risk on behalf of the reinsurer.
Hippo intends to use the capital to enable a product roll out in additional states across the US, with an aim of reaching 95% of the country’s homeowners population in the next year.
The investment will also be used for its insurance and reinsurance companies, which as of recently includes Spinnaker Insurance Company, a national property and casualty insurer licensed in 50 US states.
A statement from Hippo says this deal solidifies a strategic partnership that began with MS&AD Ventures’ initial investment in Hippo’s Series E funding round in July, 2020.
That initial investment from MS&AD Ventures helped Hippo reach a $1.5 billion valuation.
“Mitsui Sumitomo is one of the best when it comes to risk management and shares our desire to leverage data and analytics to create better outcomes for homeowners,” said Assaf Wand, CEO and Co-founder of Hippo.
“We’re excited to deepen our partnership and gain additional catastrophe modeling expertise from one of the world’s largest insurers.”
“We value the innovation that Hippo brought to the home insurance space through its advanced classification of risk,” said Shinichiro Funabiki, Director, Vice President Executive Officer at Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company, Limited.
“We look forward to learning from one another through our strategic partnership, providing high value-added products and services to customers of both companies in the U.S. and Japan, and to continue to support Hippo, which quickly became a top insurtech in the U.S. home insurance space and is beloved by its customers.”
