CB Insights

Only 2 of these 10 founders have started an insurance company before. Now they’re all building insurtechs in 2026. 🔹 Kyle Nakatsuji (Dearborn Labs) co-founded Clearcover, where AI handles 90% of automotive insurance claims. Now he’s bringing that playbook to other carriers and Managing General Agencies. 🔹 Raphaël Vullierme (Waniwani) co-founded French home insurer Luko. Now he’s helping insurers sell directly inside ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot. 🔹 Mohammad Anwar (Coveresy) previously co-founded online lending platform ActivPaisa. Now he’s pairing human advisors with AI policy analysis and preparing to launch a commercial insurance vertical. 🔹 Mohit Goyal & Purvish Shah (Ollive) came from Doctor Droid and Carboledger, then worked together at CombineHealth. Now they’re insuring AI agents against their own mistakes. 🔹 Raviv Turner, Ophir Almog & Scott Brave (OmniGeo) bring backgrounds in B2B data, satellite methane detection, and AI infrastructure. Now they’re building property-level wildfire risk data for insurers. 🔹 David Hegarty (Recourse Health) founded shopping assistant Signature Labs and ran personal finance platform Playbook. Now he’s using AI to help providers fight insurers over surprise bills. 🔹 Rohan Baisantry (WriteRisk) was a founding engineer at savings app EasyPlan. Now he’s turning underwriters’ PDF piles into organized risk profiles. This founders list was created using CB Insights Key People data, which tracks career histories across millions of founders and operators. See the full research brief in the comments 👇 #insurtech #founders #AI

CB Insights is on the Bloomberg Terminal. Today’s private companies are tomorrow’s biggest IPOs. Bloomberg Terminal users can now size them up before they ring the bell and see which are built to last once they do. A selection of CB Insights research on the leading private companies and fastest-moving emerging technologies is now right next to the public and private market data investors use every day. Our goal is simple: put CB Insights wherever our clients already work. More to come.

56% of Americans have never heard of stablecoins. But their money has. Big banks are finally moving on-chain, tokenizing deposits and settling around the clock. - U.S. Bank launched its own stablecoin this month - JPMorgan, HSBC, and Lloyds are building on Canton - SWIFT is piloting a blockchain ledger with 17 banks We teamed up with Money20/20 to map the companies behind the shift. The winners will build the infrastructure that makes on-chain money compliant, interoperable, and boring. Which suits most Americans just fine. Heading to Money20/20 USA? Find our interactive market map live on the floor in the Intersection and watch out for a panel led by our very own Aisha Chandraker who has done killer work on this.

Just dropped: The TradFi-DeFi Market Map & Maturity Index 🔥 https://lnkd.in/eqs6hC3p Blockchain has been through enough hype cycles that "banks are coming" doesn't mean much on its own. So we decided to map it out, in partnership with Money20/20. We scored all 75+ niche blockchain markets tracked by CB Insights on two dimensions: 1) maturity & momentum, and 2) TradFi integration, based on business relationships, investor backing, and acquisitions involving 200+ financial services incumbents. The top 20% of markets became our Maturity Index, and the market map covers 167 private companies across 15 categories that have raised equity funding since the start of 2024. A core theme that emerged is control. Some of the highest-ranking categories are the ones that let incumbents adopt blockchain on their own terms. We took a deep dive on three: Stablecoins-as-a-service ranked #1. M0 (M^0 Labs), Agora, and Bastion each handle a different part of the stack (white-label issuance, reserves and custody, regulated wallets and payment rails) so banks and enterprises don't have to build it themselves. Coinbase Ventures led Bastion's 2025 round with participation from Sony Innovation Fund. Months later, Bastion became the stablecoin issuer for Sony Bank's first digital asset offering. Permissioned blockchain networks ranked #4, with a TradFi integration score of 95.1. The first wave established that banks would run live transactions on shared ledgers. The second wave is widening the use cases: Digital Asset's Canton Network into tokenized repo markets, with the first live on-chain financing of US Treasuries against USDC; Swift into tokenized deposit pilots with 17 banks; and SBI Holdings and Startale's Strium into tokenized securities. Tokenized deposit issuance ranked #10, but the gap between its TradFi integration score (86) and momentum score (59) is the story - the banks stay in control of this category. Stablecore, DeCurret, and SettleMint let banks offer 24/7 programmable settlement while deposits stay inside the regulated banking system. The pattern across all three: incumbents are backing infrastructure providers, then becoming their customers. Thank you Scarlett Sieber for your perspective throughout the report, and Amanda E. and team for your partnership!

“AI" alone is a losing strategy. That was my biggest takeaway from #ITCVegas last week, which is always a highlight of my year. Here's what stood out: First, AI capabilities alone are table stakes. As the 2026 Insurtech 50 found, the "top startups embrace practicality over hype." The insurtechs that stand out are those that differentiate their AI usage. Second, insurtech is more relevant now than ever. Nearly any company can "build with AI" today, meaning that it's now more important to pay attention to the startups that actually gain traction. Third, growth is the ultimate prize. AI is additive. Strategies built solely on cutting costs will be losing bets over the long term, for most insurtechs and incumbents alike. And this final point is less an observation than a reminder: insurtech, like insurance, is and always will be defined by its people. Thank you to Insurtech 50 founders Dr. Christy Lane, Grace Hanson, Jon Qian, and Robin Diligent for an insightful discussion on the future of our industry. And thanks to my CB Insights colleagues who joined me at the conference: Mark Owens, Paul Scammacca, MBA, Samuel Butler, and Tommy Dawson.

I haven't slept since Anthropic's S-1 leaked last week. Risk factors: AI refuses to stop, games evals, builds capabilities nobody asked for, manipulates people. Dope. So the team at CB Insights made me feel better doing what they do best: finding the startups who will save us. If AI refuses to stop: - Zenity finds rogue agents. - Straiker (#AI100 2026) blocks attacks. - E2B (#AI100 2026) runs agent code in isolation. - Cyera paid $1B for agent identity startup Oasis. (Cisco, F5, and Fortinet also acquired in this space.) If AI games the test: - Patronus AI (#AI100 2025) tests agents in realistic environments. - Mindgard red teams on autopilot. - GraySwan red teams and monitors after launch.   If AI develops unexpected capabilities: - Goodfire looks inside models. - Martian interprets how LLMs work. - Guide Labs builds models easier to audit.  If AI manipulates people: - Alice (Formerly ActiveFence) catches models that only pretend to follow instructions. - Apollo Research checks whether models are scheming to evade oversight. And if all else fails: - Armilla AI (#Insurtech50 2026) sells AI liability insurance. Link to more saviors in comments.

Now live: The Money Awards Finalist Spotlight (2026 edition), in partnership with 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆𝟮𝟬/𝟮𝟬 and The Money Awards! The PDF download explores all 67 finalists selected by The Money Awards Jury using 𝗖𝗕 𝗜𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 proprietary Mosaic scores, partnership data, and Commercial Maturity ratings. Join us in Vegas on October 18 to learn the winners, discount code CBI250. https://lnkd.in/er-5P9wN

Healthcare's paperwork problem is attracting nine-figure checks. Digital health deal volume is down six straight quarters, but startups automating healthcare operations have held steady. And in Q3, investors went big. Forus (prior authorization), Candid Health (billing) and Penelope Health (coverage) each raised $100M or more. Partnerships are forming fast. Candid Health and Flatiron Health are bringing billing automation to oncology practices. WellSpan Health and Hippocratic AI are building voice agents for patient calls. HonorHealth and Qventus, Inc are co-developing AI agents to automate staff workflows. See the full trend analysis and  other trends we're tracking in the CBI-HLTH Inc. Insights Hub: https://lnkd.in/eMmDTt-P Join us at HLTH USA 2026 at $650 off, using code H26PAR_CBI250 (before prices increase October 9). Registration link in the comments.

This week's Factory v Cognition beef is delicious. It made us wonder how many VCs are betting on both sides. Here's what the data says. ICYMI: Factory's CEO accused a board adviser of passing information to Cognition. The adviser denies it. Then investors piled in on X, including Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois, partners at Khosla Ventures, which backs both companies. They landed on opposite sides. Turns out Khosla's not the only one. - 10 of the 12 leading coding AI startups share an investor with at least 4 rivals - Cognition shares one with 10 of the other 11 - 8 investors have led rounds at two or more of them But the bets are far from equal. Cognition is worth 24x what it was when Khosla got in. Factory is worth about 3x. Guess which one Vinod defended. We put this chart together by pointing our MCP at our 150-company coding agents market and asking who overlaps. Get the full analysis in the comments.