battleface Inc., a rapidly growing tech-enabled insurance startup focused on providing innovative insurance products for travellers worldwide, today announced a $12-million Series A financing round from Columbus-based Drive Capital. This investment will be used to fund growth and market expansion and establish battleface’s global headquarters in Columbus’ burgeoning tech hub.
This investment builds on battleface’s unprecedented year which saw rapid growth through its digital distribution platform and partnerships. The Series A funding will allow battleface to focus on expanding both B2B2C partnerships with custom built products for partners and expand their B2C digital offerings in additional markets. Over the past nine months, battleface has seen exponential growth as travellers seek to protect themselves amid the global pandemic.
This recent raise follows a seed round with investments from Greenlight Re Innovations and Fintech Ventures Fund, which enabled battleface to solidify operations and establish platforms and insurance-carrier relationships that helped to build the overall business. battleface CEO Sasha Gainullin explained that this latest Series A funding round shows growing investor confidence in the brand’s technology and global expansion plans.
“When we started battleface, we set out to make travel insurance relevant to our customers, simple to buy and accessible for everyone in the world. Our growth since then has significantly surpassed our initial expectations, and this funding will help us bring travel insurance to millions more as we continue to build our traveller focused global insurance platform,” said Gainullin. “With this latest investment from Drive Capital, we look forward to accelerating our growth strategy through new product development and expanded market reach.”
According to Molly Bonakdarpour, partner of Drive Capital, “With a focus on investing in the world’s next generation of market-defining companies, partnering with battleface and its highly experienced management team was a natural choice. We are confident in battleface’s ability to lead innovation in this category and drive exciting growth.”
Led by a global team of travel insurance experts, battleface combines innovative technology and underwriting to create, distribute and service specialty travel insurance products for audiences in both retail and wholesale. CEO Gainullin previously developed global operations for AIG Travel Guard and has worked with battleface since its inception. Managing Director Paul Simmonds brings experience as a Lloyd’s of London underwriter with previous leadership roles at Berkley Syndicate, CNA Hardy, Brit, and Goshawk.
Products are backed by highly rated insurers and supported by a network of 24/7 assistance coordinators, medical providers and on-the-ground field agents who provide emergency claims, medical and travel assistance services on a global basis.
About battleface
battleface provides speciality travel insurance services and benefits to travellers visiting or working internationally, including in the world’s most hard to reach places. battleface keeps insurance simple for people going places: into the surf and beneath the waves, across isolated deserts, up the sides of mountains and more. battleface products are underwritten by certain underwriters at Lloyd’s, London, Spinnaker Insurance and Crum & Forster SPC.
For more information, please visit: www.battleface.com
For more information, contact: media@battleface.com
About Drive Capital
Drive Capital is a Columbus-based venture capital firm that is focused on investing in the world’s next generation of market-defining companies. The firm started in 2013 and raised over $1B of funds to invest in startups solving problems in large markets. Drive is an investor in more than 40 companies outside of Silicon Valley, including Root Insurance, Duolingo, and Branch.
