Wunderite, provider of an intuitive customer-facing platform for independent insurance agencies, today announced a $3 million seed funding round led by Spark Capital with participation from Boston Seed and leading insurance industry firms and their executives, including John Wepler from MarshBerry, Scott Addis from Beyond Insurance, Brian Hetherington from The ABD Team, Ty Harris from Openly, Andrew Krantz from York International, Heffernan Insurance Brokers, Trustco Inc, and BrokerTech Ventures. The new capital will fuel the company’s rapid growth by accelerating product development and increasing distribution to agencies across the country. Wunderite also announced it has added Spark Capital’s General Partner Alex Finkelstein to its Board of Directors.
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Wunderite Co-founders Peter MacDonald and Joe Schnare (Photo: Business Wire)
Wunderite’s annual subscription-based platform delivers an intuitive workflow for independent agents, enabling them to better serve customers purchasing or renewing Property & Casualty insurance. The software captures and centralizes customer data to streamline the process of filling out insurance applications. Wunderite is available on mobile devices, enabling anywhere, anytime access. The solution was developed by an insurance industry veteran as a resource for brokers to reduce long application and approval cycles, improve the customer experience and address growing data security concerns.
“Having worked at my family’s insurance agency, I knew there was an enormous opportunity for agents to natively do business online. I leveraged my agency background and taught myself to code during business school to build a more delightful, efficient way for agents to connect with their customers,” said Peter MacDonald, founder and CEO of Wunderite. “Wunderite shortens the application process, helping agents sell more deals. We are relentlessly focused on improving the customer experience.”
Supporting Independent Agent Growth
According to The Insurance Information Institute and the Big I, annually 59% of all P&C insurance is sold through independent agents, representing a nearly $400 billion market opportunity. Wunderite partners with a number of insurance broker trade groups and industry associations, including InCite Performance Group and Beyond Insurance. The software works alongside industry software such as Verafore and Applied, so brokers can leverage Wunderite to augment existing technology strategies.
“The days of selling insurance during a round of golf or over drinks are vanishing,” said Alex Finkelstein, General Partner at Spark Capital. “Buyers want to be efficient with their time and only buy what they need. Wunderite is allowing agents to be more valuable partners to their customers by offering a streamlined, data-driven product that helps them clearly understand what their options are. Wunderite allows them to deliver that in a smart and attractive way for promising ROI.”
First-Hand Knowledge of Industry Pain Points
The company was founded in 2019 by Peter MacDonald, whose family has owned and operated a 50 year old independent insurance agency on Cape Cod, MA and Joe Schnare, who grew up in a family-owned construction business based in Worcester, MA. Wunderite was born out of a shared frustration with antiquated processes. The two met on the first day of business school at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, and immediately shared a vision to modernize the insurance buying process with a digital solution that would benefit the entire industry. MacDonald is a self-taught full stack software engineer: there wasn’t a tool that existed that blended customer experience with agent productivity, so he built it.
Wunderite is headquartered in Boston, MA. With the new capital, the company anticipates it will double its team in the next 12 months, as it extends the platform’s use to a broader network of insurance agencies.
ABOUT WUNDERITE
Wunderite is a Boston-based insurance technology company that provides an intuitive customer-facing platform for independent insurance agencies. The Wunderite platform makes insurance transparent, approachable, and (dare we say) fun by simplifying and automating the sales and underwriting process. Founded by insurance industry and small business veterans Peter MacDonald and Joe Schnare, Wunderite is a part of top innovation groups, including BCP Technology Accelerator, BrokerTech Ventures, DCU Fintech, and Techstars, and has been featured in leading industry publications, such as Carrier Management, Insurance Journal, and Agency Checklists. For more information: https://www.wunderite.com/
ABOUT SPARK
We are Spark Capital, investors in products we love by creators we admire, including Affirm, Carta, Cruise, Discord, Oculus, Plaid, Postmates, Slack, Twitter, and Wayfair. We know there are no playbooks or formulas for success and are here to help founders win their own way. We invest across all sectors and stages, and work out of San Francisco, Boston, and New York City.
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