Policy Bazaar

My friend, Alok Bansal, has started a website along with some other people. Policy Bazaar (www.policybazaar.com) is an insurance aggregator. An interesting and useful concept. The company has now received VC funding. Here are the details.

_____________________________________________________

Info Edge To Invest Rs 20 Crore In An Online Insurance Aggregator

Info Edge will pick up 49% stake in Etechaces Marketing and Consulting, which runs Policybazaar.com . Info Edge India Ltd, the owners of Naukri.com, will invest Rs 20 crore for a 49% stake in eTechAces Marketing and Consulting Pvt Ltd, an online aggregator of insurance products, the company informed the stock exchange. eTechAces runs policybazaar.com, an online aggregator of life and non-life insurance products. The website essentially collects insurance leads and let the insurance companies compete for it. 

In a press note issued from the company, Info Edge, Ambarish Raghuvanshi, CFO and Director, Info Edge (India) ltd. said, “eTechAces has a great management team and a differentiated approach to distributing financial products online, by empowering the customer to enable comparison of available options and make an informed data-driven decision. The company’s bouquet of products include insurance products to be sold online, which is so far an untapped area in India. In other countries, especially in Europe, it is a high growth category."

Etechaces is founded by Yashish Dahiya who is also the CEO of the company, Alok Bansal and Avaneesh Nirjar who act as the CFO and COO of the firm respectively. It was only in July that Info Edge invested Rs 6.5 crore ($1.54 million) for a 40 per cent equity stake in Applect Learning Systems, a Delhi-based education content developer. It had already disbursed Rs 1 crore as part of the first tranche of the investment. 

Earlier this year, Info Edge invested $1 million in StudyPlaces Inc, as part of the latter’s $3-million series A round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.