Naked is a digital insurance platform that offers end-to-end, AI-driven car, home, building, and standalone item insurance. The company uses artificial intelligence to automate customer processes and experiences so users can buy and manage policies without speaking to a contact-center agent. Its automation model drives cost savings for businesses, which Naked says it passes on to customers through lower premiums. Founded in 2018, Naked is an authorized financial services provider and aims to make insurance more accessible and straightforward through digital experiences. The company plans to expand its team, enter new markets, and further develop its AI capabilities to grow across Africa. The funding announced in the articles is positioned to support those growth and product-improvement efforts. Naked is a digital insurance platform founded in 2018 that offers online insurance for cars, homes, contents and standalone items. The company uses artificial intelligence to streamline processes and customer experiences. Customers can get a final quote in under 90 seconds and can switch or pause cover online, including pausing car premiums when not driving. Naked built its platform from the ground up to add features tailored to its customer base and to reduce reliance on human intervention. The company aims to expand its team, continue investing in customer-facing technology, serve a growing portion of the South African market, and enter international markets. Naked positions itself to capture more of a market where online automation can significantly lower claims costs and where millennial preferences are shifting toward digital insurance channels. Naked offers an artificial intelligence-driven car insurance product that launched its first offering in April after about 18 months of development. The company uses a model that takes a fixed portion of premiums to run the business and places the balance into a claims pool. At year-end, leftover funds in the claims pool are donated to charities nominated by customers, rather than being counted as company profit. Naked says customer acquisition and retention rates have exceeded expectations during a strong first six months of trading. The startup currently has 14 staff and plans to expand headcount to about 20, hiring additional data science roles and ramping up customer acquisition. It also intends to expand into new short-term insurance product categories. Naked is a South African insurtech startup that says it will remake the insurance business model to give customers a faster, fairer and more flexible insurance experience. The company places absolute customer empowerment and control at the centre of its offering and says it will retain only coverage from the existing insurance model while rebuilding everything else. Naked is led by actuaries Alex Thomson and Sumarié Greybe, who previously served as partners in EY’s insurance advisory business. The startup is set to enter the market in the first quarter of 2018. Hollard appointed outgoing Hollard group CEO Nic Kohler to Naked’s board. Hollard and private investment group Yellowwoods have invested R20‑million in the business.

Total raised

$32M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Feb 2023