PolicyBazaar’s UAE arm has raised $75 million from Falcon Edge Capital as it looks to expand its presence in the UAE and Middle East, the Times of India reported. The UAE arm is a subsidiary of EtechAces Marketing & Consulting, which operates PolicyBazaar and Paisabazaar. Neeraj Gupta, CEO of PolicyBazaar UAE, said the company has sold sum assured worth $100 million through term life insurance products and intends to scale this in the next 12-18 months.
Earlier this month, PolicyBazaar carried out its second secondary share sale worth $45 million, in which private equity form True North and other investors sold their stakes. Bay Capital, IIFL Wealth, White Oak Global Advisors and Cyrus Poonawalla Group came in as investors. At the time, Yashish Dahiya, founder and group CEO, had said that Bay Capital was a long-term investor and would play a key role as the company heads towards listing publicly in the next 12-15 months.
In November 2020, there was a secondary deal of $20 million by True North, wherein Alpha Wave Incubation, an early stage fund managed by Falcon Edge and anchored by ADQ, a holding company owned by the Abu Dhabi government, had come onboard. Before that, Softbank Vision Fund had bought stakes from older investors including Tiger Global, Ribbit Capital, and Inventus Capital for a reported $130 million.
Some of Policybazaar’s other investors are Info Edge (India), PremjiInvest, Temasek Holdings, Steadview Capital, Chiratae Ventures and Wellington Management.
Policybazaar serves as an insurance aggregator letting users choose compare and buy multiple kinds of policies. Plans to go to IPO have been circling for months, with the company reportedly inviting proposals to enlist investment banks for the listing. In July 2020, PolicyBazaar CEO Yashish Dahiya had said that the company plans to go public in India before September 2021 and raise $500 million at a valuation of $3.5 billion.
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