Insurtech NY opens 2022 early-stage competition

InsurTech NY opened its application window for the third annual Insurtech Early-Stage 2022 Competition. The three winning teams will split $200,000 in prizes.

Eligible insurtechs include companies that had less than $250,000 in revenue last year. The top 10 finalists will be invited to present pitches in front of an investor judging panel at the InsurTech NY Spring 2022 Conference on March 7.

“We are proud to be a catalyst for early-stage InsurTechs to gain recognition and relationships to scale their business,” said David Gritz, co-founder of Insurtech NY, in a statement. “Each year we strive to make the competition better. This year, one of the winners will be awarded by InsurTech NY, and the winner will be strongly considered for investment from InsurTech Fund up to $50k."

The competition judges include angel investors, insurance carriers and venture capitalists including people from such companies as Nationwide Ventures, DealerPolicy and Gallagher. The judges will be looking for investment and proof of concept opportunities with the startups.

Previous startup finalists from 2020 include Honeycomb Insurance, Protosure, Sigo Insurance and Matterport. In 2021, Delos Insurance was awarded the angel investor prize.

Kevin Stein, CEO of Delos Insurance, said in a statement that growing the company has been long.

“Winning the InsurTech NY competition was a very important step along that journey and helped us get the exposure we needed to get to the next level,” said Stein.

Delos Insurance closed a $5.3 million seed funding round in December of last year. Participants in the round included two competition judges, Crystal Ventures and Avanta Ventures.

Honeycomb Insurance raised $3.3 million in a Series A funding round in June 2021. Participants in the round included IT-Farm, Phoenix Insurance, New Era Capital Partners and NFP Ventures, which was a competition judge.

The deadline for submission is Jan. 28. Startups can apply on the Insurtech NY website and finalists will be announced in February.