Wagmo Closes $12.5M Series A
Congrats to support Christie Horvath and Allison Foxworth on their next step scaling pet insurance across America, and welcome Revolution Ventures to the team with the closing of Wagno’s $12.5 million Series A.
When we invested in Wagmo in their pre-seed with our portfolio Iñaki Berenguer, founder of CoverWallet (acquired by AON), we saw the opportunity of under-penetrated insurance markets in the US. Christie was still at HBS, and there wasn’t even a working website, but the Venn diagram of complex underwriting models and cute puppies don’t overlap often. Two Culture Cap co-founder Simon Wagner, originally from Bavaria, also understood the broader global context of insurance markets in Germany where pet insurance is far more popular among consumers.
Insurance is more popular in Europe in part due to different levels of risk tolerance and offerings, but also due to easier onramps and claims processing. Wagmo pioneered their Wellness plan before going into full insurance products, where they offered cheaper plans and reimbursement options for pet check-ups, hair cuts, and wellness purchases such as flea and tick and heart worm preventative medications. Today they’ve processed over 30,000 wellness claims with payouts happening almost instantaneously via PayPal and Venmo (i.e. not your grandpa’s pet insurance).
When I worked in product management at Google 15 years ago we used the adage to “eat your own dog food.” What this means is “use your own products.” If you don’t like what you build, no amount of convincing will ever get others to like what you do. So with Wagmo we’re excited to see Christie and Allison continue to build the pet insurance brand that I’ve used with my Cavalier King Charles, Pippa, since day one. She’s pretty into the treats, and I’m pretty into the easy Venmo reimbursements. So needless to say we’re both into “eating our own dog food.”