Ohio car insurance startup bags $100,000 in latest fundraising round

Root, an AI-boosted car insurance startup out of Columbus, Ohio, secured a $100,000 series D fundraising round to enter unicorn territory with a billion-dollar valuation, according to a report from Venture Beat. After coming off a series C fund round of $51 million in March, the trajectory for Root’s business keeps trending upwards. Through a smartphone app, the insurance startup promises customized quotes based on individual driving statistics rather than relying on generalized demographics like most major insurance carriers. The entire model is looking to revolutionize the way in which car insurance companies hand out rates to their customers. Investors have clearly taken notice, most notably Tiger Global, which led the latest fundraising round that closed last week. Tiger was joined by Redpoint Ventures and Scale Venture Partners, both of which contributed to the prior fundraising round as well. “Our technology allows us to give drivers rates based primarily on factors they can actually control, bringing fairness to a broken and antiquated industry,” CEO and Co-Founder of Root Alex Timm said in a March press release. “We are leveraging mobile technology and artificial intelligence to reimagine the way insurance works.” Root has expanded considerably in just a few months and is now available in 20 states throughout the U.S. It will soon make the app available in eight more states and Timm has said he expects the app to be in all 50 states by the end of 2019. “Our growth the past six months has exceeded even our own expectations,” Timm told VentureBeat. “We went from writing just shy of $4 million of direct premium in all of 2017, to nearly $23 million in the first half of 2018.” As its continued growth seems inevitable, Root is already the latest Midwest startup to reach unicorn status despite being founded just three years ago.