Vishal Sankhla, a former product leader at digital life insurance distributor Ethos and engineering executive at Facebook and Uber, has raised a $34.5 million Series B for his AI startup Outmarket. The funding, which values the company at $335 million, comes just four months after a $17 million Series A and signals growing investor appetite for technology that automates the paperwork-heavy commercial insurance industry.
From manual processes to AI-driven workflows
Outmarket builds AI tools that help insurance agencies and brokers handle administrative tasks like filling out application forms and reviewing policy documents. Sankhla launched the company in late 2023 after leaving Ethos, which went public earlier this year. "Ninety-five percent of insurance in the U.S. and worldwide is still sold through [human] agents, and when you look at sort of like how the process is today, it's very manual," Sankhla told TechCrunch. "This is a huge opportunity given how massive this industry is."
The startup focuses specifically on commercial insurance, where policies require custom tailoring for each business. Companies must navigate a wide range of coverage options, from general liability and workers' compensation to directors and officers liability. "There are over 250 different types of coverages that are out there, depending on what business you are and what risk you have and what you want to cover," Sankhla said. "For each of those, the process is very different. The application forms you need to fill out, the documents you need to read."
Rapid adoption among top agencies
Outmarket's product automates time-consuming evaluation and recommendation tasks so brokers can focus on work that requires human judgment, such as responding to customers during emergencies. The approach has drawn more than 300 insurance agencies as customers since the product launched 14 months ago. A quarter of those agencies rank among the top 100 in the industry. "For insurance, which is typically not a fast-moving industry, it's quite fast growth," Sankhla said.
The Series B round was led by SignalFire, with participation from Fika Ventures, Permanent Capital Ventures, TTV Capital, and Dash Fund. Outmarket competes with other startups building AI operating layers for insurance brokerages, including Fulcrum AI and FurtherAI. The U.S. property and casualty insurance market alone generates over a trillion dollars in annual premiums, leaving substantial room for multiple players.
The commercial insurance complexity problem
Commercial insurance differs sharply from consumer policies in its level of customization. Every business carries a unique risk profile that demands specific coverage combinations, and each type of coverage comes with its own application process and documentation requirements. Brokers spend significant time matching client needs to appropriate policies across hundreds of coverage types. Automating that matching and paperwork process allows agencies to serve more clients without adding headcount.
Professionals looking to understand how AI applies to insurance workflows can explore AI for Insurance Courses that cover practical implementation strategies. The broader automation techniques driving tools like Outmarket also appear in AI Agent Courses focused on building autonomous workflows.
Why this matters for finance and insurance professionals
Outmarket's growth trajectory and $335 million valuation suggest that AI adoption in commercial insurance is accelerating beyond pilot programs into operational reality. For insurance brokers and agency leaders, the competitive pressure to automate administrative work will likely intensify as more peers adopt these tools. The ability to process policies faster and serve more clients without proportional staffing increases could reshape agency economics over the next several years. For underwriters and carriers, the spread of AI at the brokerage layer may change the volume and speed of submissions flowing into their pipelines.
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