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When we started building Marble in late 2019, we were in an actual physical office. I was taking the subway multiple times a day.¹ Things were “normal.”
We couldn't have foreseen that months later, we'd be announcing our first fundraise in a financial climate like this. On Capitol Hill, there are discussions of a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, and on Main Street, retail investors are piling into "meme stocks" in an effort to take on Wall Street. The pandemic has pushed fintech into the mainstream, and we're seeing tremendous momentum building behind the democratization and accessibility of financial services.
It’s time for insurance to join this movement - for real this time. For the last decade nearly all customer-facing insurance innovation has gone towards tools and products that sell more insurance, faster. This has not always ended up as a good thing for the consumer.²
While challenger banks and personal finance companies spent the last ten years building beautiful, accessible products that customers engage with over and over, the websites of most modern insurers still read something like "shop, quote, bind." Close your eyes, say that aloud, and you could be shopping for insurance 30 years ago.
We’ve seen some cool stuff this year as the challenger banks took baby steps to integrate insurance — a positive development which has some interesting implications for pulling inefficient dollars out of the digital advertising duopoly.³ Unfortunately, these partnerships are still very shallow and don’t end up offering much beyond a pop-up featuring some insurance quotes, without context or explanation.
That's why today, we're thrilled to announce that Marble has raised $2.5 million in seed round funding, with backing from experienced insurance and fintech investors like IA Capital Group, MS&AD Ventures, Reciprocal Ventures, Fintech Ventures Fund, The Takoma Group, and HU Investments.
With this new funding we’ll continue to build Marble into the digital platform, and suite of tools, that fulfills the real promise of insurtech. The next step will come in March when we’ll open our digital insurance wallet in a public beta. Our closed-ish (technical term) beta has been a huge hit, we’ve learned a ton, and we can’t wait to welcome the thousands of interested members off our waitlist.
This spring we’ll start launching our first enterprise partnerships, leveraging Marble’s flexible API backend to help national insurance carriers drive engagement and retention. A big portion of today’s investment will allow us to respond to the surge of inbound interest we’ve seen from carriers and brokers alike. Now we’ll be able to confidently resource against additional integrations through 2021.
With all that we have planned, we’ve already grown our team with some truly exceptional additions this year. But we have a lot more building to do, so check out our open roles here.
It is still early days for Marble, and we’re setting off to do something very big in a massive industry. We don’t take that lightly. Today’s announcement is thrilling and we’re humbled by the support of our new investors, but most of all, we’re excited. Excited to build and grow a product that actually revolutionizes insurance for our members.
¹ I’ve recorded all my subway rides since 2018. Why? Because it means I can create charts like this one. Also a bonus for footnote readers: In terms of repeat rides, I seem to max out at 4 trips per same car; however, there is 1 car I have traveled in 5 times. Car #2002 ilu.
² Customer Satisfaction Crashes Across Finance, Insurance, and Health Care Sectors & Prices for new cars up 5 percent, insurance 50 percent, over last 10 years
