Octamile emerges from stealth with $500,000 pre-seed funding

Octamile has raised $500,000 in a pre-seed round led by EchoVC with participation from Fiat Ventures, Kesho VC, Trade X, Verraki Partners, Dale Mathias, Kyle Daley and other local and international Angels.

With its emergence from stealth mode, Octamile will enable non-insurance business to offer insurance as a feature in their existing products. It will also provide insurance companies with innovative data and technology to improve customer experience, reduce administrative costs and optimize the profitability of their portfolio.

Prior to the impact of COVID-19, a report by McKinsey said African insurance market was expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7% per annum between 2020 and 2025, nearly twice as fast as North America, over three times that of Europe, and better than Asia’s 6 percent.

"Insurance is one sector that has the power to elevate the economy, but only about 5 out of 100 Africans have any form of insurance protection. The industry has lagged in the use of technology to deliver better products and services" Gbenro Dara, Founder and CEO of Octamile said.

Previously, Dara worked as the managing director at OList.ng, the CEO of Cheki. He also led teams at other technology startups including; Jumia, Hotels.ng, Efritin and MyAutoGenius [now MyCoverGenius]. Currently, a Member of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria, he also bagged his bachelor degree in Insurance at the University of Lagos.

With his professional and academic background, Gbenro Dara and the Octamile team will work with its partners; AXAMansard and FirstBank to onboard insurers and
startups on its waitlist within the next months.

Insurance as a risk protection mechanism plays an important role in Africa's achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) thereby allowing the world's excluded and underserved to take control of their lives and reduce their vulnerability against risks.

How will Octamile benefit Africans?

With its vision to frontline operating system infrastructure for digital insurance
in Africa, Octamile will enable:

● Digital Claims: Octamile's insurtech solution empowers insurance providers to provide a seamless claims experience and reduce administrative costs by integrating end-to-end claims management solutions into their existing systems and processes. Octamile’s end-to-end solution covers first notification of loss, remote inspections, rule-based decision making and payments.

● Improved Risk-Assessment: This will increase the profitability of user's insurance portfolio by integrating data from diverse sources to establish better pricing and risk profiling of customers and their assets. The data can also be used by Brokers, Banks, Fleet owners, Online Marketplaces.

● Embedded Insurance APIs: Through this flexible and customizable APIs, non-Insurance businesses and developers can boost revenues and increase the life-cycle value of existing customers by adding insurance by 'default' as a feature in their product or existing business.

According to Gbenro Dara "our team has identified key areas where we add value and support the growth of the Insurance ecosystem with data and technology by partnering with traditional insurance businesses and non-insurance businesses".