Pineapple closes Series A round at R80m

Pineapple is an insurtech startup that has captured the hearts and minds of many South Africans. After launching in 2018, the company has won many awards locally and internationally, including MTN Consumer App of the Year, Stanford startup award, and was the first Insurtech accepted into Google’s Launchpad Accelerator Programme.

#StartupStory: How Pineapple grew in the AWS cloud

Evan-Lee Courie  14 Feb 2019

Pineapple launched into the South African market in mid 2018 with the goal of solving the trust issue in insurance. Cofounder Marnus van Heerden says “Pineapple is on a journey to improve the trust between insurer and insured, by providing superior customer experience backed by cutting edge technology and an innovative model. We operate off a fixed fee and unused premiums are returned to members”.

With Pineapple you can insure your car or your belongings in under 90 seconds via their App or website. The insurance policies are underwritten by Old Mutual Insure, and founding innovation partner Hannover-Re, continues as reinsurer and strategic partner to Pineapple.

Cofounder Ndabenhle Ngulube attributes the success of the round to the unprecedented growth that they have seen this year. “We did not expect to grow by 200% in the first 6 months of this year, but it goes to show that customer insurance purchase behaviour is starting to shift online and that customers are becoming more astute as to the online ratings of insurance providers and not settling for second best” with respect to customer experience.

They have made headlines in recent months for being the best rated insurance provider with an average score of 4.7/5 a full 0.4 stars ahead of their closest competitor at 4.4/5.

Another cofounder, Sizwe Ndlovu, noted that the funds will be used for the expansion of the SA business as well as growing overseas partnerships, including the partnership with Travelers insurance in the US.

Bakang Komanyane at E4E stated that the reason why they chose Pineapple for investment is because “When asked what is next for Pineapple, cofounder Matthew Smith stated “We have become so obsessed with our customers. We have a long list of features that we are building to continue to make the offering and experience fun, understandable and useful. Look out for a “community orientated” feature dropping in August that will change the way people feel about insurance!”

The future for fintech companies in Africa is looking up, with Pineapple setting a benchmark in terms of what can be achieved when young South African talent is given access to capital, strong guidance and mentorship - potentially setting a trend for South Africa to become a hub for producing globally scalable technology.