Health insurance startup Alan reaches $4.5 billion valuation with new $193 million funding round

Alanthe French insurance unicorn has just signed a multi-faceted agreement with Belfiusconsidered one of the most important banks in Belgium, which incorporates a distribution partnership and a major financial investment within the startup.

Belfius is leading Alan’s Series F funding round of €173 million (around $193 million at current exchange rates). Some of Alan’s existing investors are participating again, namely OTPP via Teachers’ Venture Growth, Temasek, Coatue, and Lakestar.

If you’re not familiar with Alan, the corporate originally began as a health insurance product that supplemented France’s national healthcare system. French corporations are required to offer health insurance to all of their employees after they join.

Alan has optimized his core product as much as possible to make the user experience a lot better than the legacy insurance provider. For example, Alan has automated many parts of the claims management system. In some cases, you get a refund in your checking account only one minute after leaving the doctor’s office.

Over time, the corporate has added other health-related services, reminiscent of the power to talk with doctors, order prescription glasses, and access preventive content about mental health, back pain, and more through its mobile app. More recently, the corporate has turned to artificial intelligence to spice up its productivity.

Earlier this yr, Alan shared some metrics concerning the company’s performance. The company said that greater than 500,000 persons are covered by Alan’s insurance products and that it could reach profitability without raising one other round of funding.

Alan, nonetheless, said the partnership with Belfius is a very good opportunity to expand the bank’s customer base in Belgium – the bank will offer the startup’s health insurance products to its corporate and institutional clients, who make up thousands and thousands of employees.

“This privileged partnership with Belfius, whose transformation over the past decade has been truly inspiring, opens the door to a new era for Alan in Belgium. Belfius’ investment will enable us to accelerate our growth and expand our ability to offer cutting-edge, accessible healthcare products and services to a broad audience,” said Jean-Charles Samuelian-Werve, co-founder and CEO of Alan, in a press release.

Since February, Alan has signed up one other 150,000 clients, including the Prime Minister’s office in France. His annual recurring revenue is predicted to succeed in €450 million (about $500 million) this yr.

But Alan isn’t any typical software-as-a-service company, with most of its revenue going to insurance claims. Still, one thing is needless to say: the corporate’s growth shows no signs of slowing down.