Insurtech startup Acko acquihires car retailing platform VLer Technology

Bengaluru-based insurtech player Acko on Monday announced its acquisition of Mumbai-based online car buying portal VLer Technology.

With this acquisition, Acko is getting deeper into strengthening their auto-ecosystem. VLer’s capabilities and know-how will help the company improve its offering and provide better customer satisfaction across the entire lifecycle of car purchase and usage.

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Speaking on the acquisition, Ruchi Deepak, Co-founder of Acko, said,  

"Insurtech is our core and major focus area. Our next steps on this are to track down various data points on customer behaviour, usage patterns to enhance insurance and underwriting technology. We believe with the domain expertise of VLer team, it will help us leverage this faster."

Founded in 2016, VLer has been working on solving the broken car retail experience in the country. Its core premise was around bringing in a fluid, transparent, and haggle-free experience of purchasing a car - primarily digitally. This was done through an algorithm-based recommendation system, dealer negotiations along with taking care of financing, insurance and other related paperwork, after finalising of the deal.

VLer was started by Sanjay Bharti and Akash Saxena, both graduates of IIT Bombay, who have several years of experience in the technology and retail domain between themselves. Both the co-founders have joined Acko Technology team. 

Founded by Varun Dua in 2016, Acko General Insurance provides relevant insurance products, catering to the needs of the digitally-savvy consumer. Acko also offers innovative and bite-sized insurance products such as rider insurance, mobile and appliance protection, and ticket cancellation, and has partnered with more than 15 consumer internet players including Ola, Amazon, redBus, Zomato and UrbanClap.

In March, this year, online insurance startup, Acko raised $65 million as a part of its Series C round from Binny Bansal, Co-founder and former CEO of Flipkart, RPS Ventures led by SoftBank's former managing partner Kabir Misra, and Intact Ventures, corporate venture arm of Canada’s largest property and casualty insurer.

The round also saw participation from existing investors including Amazon, Accel Partners, SAIF Partners and TechPro Ventures. As a part of this round, Binny Bansal reportedly invested $25 million in Acko.

With this latest round of Series C funding, Acko’s total funds raised stands at $107 million.

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