Insurtech startup Hippo raises $350 million from Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance to transform home insurance

Back in July, we wrote about Hippo after the Silicon Valley-based insurtech startup raised $150 million in a Series E funding round to accelerate growth. Now, the company just announced it has another $350 million capital investment from Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance.

Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company, Limited is a subsidiary of MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings, Inc. Through this partnership, Hippo said that Takashi Sato, a managing partner of MS&AD Ventures, the corporate venture capital fund of MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings, will join its board of directors as an observer.

Founded in 2015 by Assaf Wand and Eyal Navon, Hippo automates and modernizes home insurance coverage to change the way homeowners safeguard their most important asset. Hippo’s innovative home insurance model includes world-class customer experience and services that proactively identify and help to resolve risks for its consumers. In the past 12 months, the company has grown its total written premiums to $270 million, growing at 140 percent YoY.

With the investment, Hippo plans to roll out products in additional states to reach 95% of the U.S. homeowners in the next year and will provide additional capital for its insurance and reinsurance companies. The investment solidifies the strategic partnership between the two companies, which began with MS&AD Ventures’ initial investment in Hippo’s Series E funding round in July 2020.

“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.”

Hippo and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company, Limited plan to sign a reinsurance treaty. Mitsui Sumitomo will take on a portion of the risk to support Hippo’s Insurance Company, a national property, and casualty insurer licensed in 50 states and rated A- (Excellent) by A.M. Best Company.

“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.”