Insuretech Outmarket raises $34.5M just months after prior round

Vishal Sankhala left Ethos in late 2023 and started Outmarket to attack one of insurance’s least glamorous jobs: paperwork. The pitch is simple. Use AI to handle the forms, documents, and back-and-forth that slow brokers down, especially in commercial insurance, where each policy has to be tailored to the business in front of it.

That niche matters because commercial coverage gets complicated fast. Sankhala says there are more than 250 types of coverages, and the process shifts depending on the risk, the business, and the documents involved. Outmarket is trying to make that mess less manual, so brokers can spend more time on the parts humans still do better, like dealing with customers when things go wrong.

The company says that approach has already pulled in more than 300 insurance agencies as customers since it launched a new product 14 months ago, including 25% of the top 100. For an industry that moves slowly, that is real traction. It also helps that Sankhala knows the territory: before Ethos, he worked at Facebook and Uber.

Now the funding is getting bigger fast. Outmarket is set to announce a $34.5 million Series B led by SignalFire, with Fika Ventures, Permanent Capital Ventures, TTV Capital and Dash Fund also participating. The round comes just four months after its $17 million Series A and values the startup at $355 million, according to a person familiar with the deal. The company is also entering a crowded corner of the market, with Fulcrum AI and Further AI chasing the same idea, but Sankhala argues the opportunity is still huge given the size of U.S. property and casualty insurance alone.