Hippo is an American property insurance company based in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish language, Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree kno ...

. Hippo offers

homeowner's insurance Home insurance, also commonly called homeowner's insurance (often abbreviated in the US real estate industry as HOI), is a type of property insurance that covers a private residence. It is an insurance policy that combines various personal insura ...

that covers the homes and possessions of the insurance holder as well as liability from accidents happening in the insured property. They use AI and

big data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...

to aggregate and analyze property information. The company sells insurance policies directly to customers and through independent insurance brokers.

History

Hippo was founded by Assaf Wand, a former

Intel Capital Intel Capital is a division of Intel Corporation, set up to manage corporate venture capital, global investment, mergers and acquisitions. Intel Capital makes equity investments in a range of technology startups and companies offering hardware, so ...

investor and

McKinsey McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. McKinsey is the oldest and ...

consultant, and Eyal Navon, an entrepreneur with a background in software engineering and R&D. A serial entrepreneur who had previously founded several companies, Wand's interest in insurance was inspired by his father's lengthy career in the "antiquated" insurance industry. It was founded in 2015, shortly after Wand's third start-up, Sabi, was acquired. In December 2016, to fund product development, Hippo raised $14m in a

Series A round A series A round (also known as series A financing or series A investment) is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

of venture capital financing, and in April 2017 Hippo launched in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. At launch, the company's marketing was centered on the delivery of a 60-second quote for homeowners insurance policies; a transparent, online purchase process; and smart home sensors that could proactively identify and prevent potential damage to policyholder's homes. In November 2018, Hippo raised $25 million in

Series B A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the ...

financing, led by

Comcast Ventures Comcast Ventures was a corporate venture capital firm headquartered in San Francisco, California. History In early 2011, Comcast and NBCUniversal combined their two venture arms, Comcast Interactive Capital founded in 1999 and the Peacock Fund, ...

and Fifth Wall Ventures. The funding was used, in part, to open a customer service and insurance operations center in

Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...

. A $70 million funding round was announced in November 2018, and in March 2019, with Hippo insurance available to more than 50% of the homeowners in the United States, the company reported a 25 percent month-over-month sales growth and total insured property value of more than $50 billion. In July, $100 million was raised in new venture capital, led by

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's Bond Capital, bringing Hippo's valuation to $1 billion. Also in November 2018, Hippo raised $70 million in Series C funding, led by Felicis Ventures and

Lennar Lennar Corporation is a home construction company based in the census-designated place of Fontainebleau, Florida, with a Miami postal address. In 2021, the company was the second-largest home construction company in the United States based on the ...

. In July 2019, Hippo raised $100 million in Series D funding, led by Bond Capital. In July 2020, Hippo raised $150 million in Series E funding. In November 2020, Hippo raised $350 million from an investment by Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company, Limited, a subsidiary of

MS&AD Insurance Group () is a Japanese insurance company. Its businesses include Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance and Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance. It is listed on the Nikkei 225 The Nikkei 225, or , more commonly called the ''Nikkei'' or the ''Nikkei index'' (), is a sto ...

Hippo acquired Sheltr, a San Francisco-based tech-enabled services startup designed to provide home wellness checkups, in November 2019. Hippo went

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

and was listed on the

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

through Reinvent Technology Partners, its

special-purpose acquisition company A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC; ), also known as a "blank check company", is a shell corporation listed on a stock exchange with the purpose of acquiring a private company, thus making it public without going through the traditional i ...

, in August 2021. In June 2022, Wand was appointed executive chairperson of Hippo. As of mid October 2022, the value of a share purchased at the IPO had fallen by more than 95%. Insurance veteran Richard McCathron was elevated to CEO.

References

External links

* {{Official, https://hippo.com/ Insurance companies of the United States American companies established in 2015 Online insurance companies Companies based in Palo Alto, California 2015 establishments in California Financial services companies established in 2015 Special-purpose acquisition companies