SAN FRANCISCO — Nirvana Insurance, a technology-driven platform that modernizes commercial fleet insurance using vast amounts of data from sensors on trucks, announced Wednesday the public launch of its services to make our roads safer and aid the imperiled truck industry.
Led by key former employees from IPO blockbuster Samsara, Rubrik and Root Insurance, Nirvana recently closed a $22 million Series A funding round, bringing the total raised to more than $25 million
The round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with additional participation from General Catalyst, Elad Gil, Fidji Simo (CEO, Instacart), Spike Lipkin (CEO, Newfront), Sam Hodges (CEO, Vouch) and more. Nirvana will use the funding to scale its operations, grow its team, and invest in R&D efforts to expand products and services.
The company uses telematics data to help fleets mitigate risk, improve driver performance, drop costs and make the insurance process easier.
Nirvana gives up to a 20% discount upfront to the safest fleets and turns an insurance process that often takes months into mere minutes.
“The analog approach to issuing insurance to commercial fleets is fundamentally broken,” Rushil Goel, CEO and co-founder of Nirvana, said. “The process is confusing, slow, and comes at a high productivity and financial cost.”
The Nirvana platform connects billions of data points from these telematics and AI-powered dash cams, as well as public sources like the DMV and the department of transportation, to provide instantaneous quotes.
Location, speed, video, erratic driving, weather, and traffic are all factors that are assessed by Nirvana’s bespoke machine-learning algorithms. Nirvana also gives regular recommendations to its clients, including specific coaching for drivers, as well as routes to avoid.
“In my time working with more than 20,000 fleets at Samsara, I saw over and over again how these small businesses were completely frustrated with insurance and struggling to survive, Goel said. “Truckers who were doing all the right things and investing in safety, still saw their rates go up every year to the point where it forced them out of business,” said Goel.
The policies are also usage based: Customers only pay for how much they drive, supporting the focus on reducing costs and tailoring coverage to a fleet’s actual exposure and usage.
“Rapidly rising premiums in commercial fleet insurance are causing trucking businesses to shut down,” Raviraj Jain, partner at Lightspeed Partners, said. “Nirvana is bringing next-generation, data-driven insurance to the commercial fleet world by helping them operate not only more safely as business owners but leverage that safety to positively impact customers and beyond. Nirvana’s mission and leadership team have impressed us from the very beginning, and we’re excited to collaborate with the team to help unlock its full potential.”
“Today, commercial fleet insurance is creating high costs and inefficiencies for trucking companies. Nirvana Insurance is poised to transform the trucking insurance industry and bring it into the 21st century,” Joel Cutler, partner at General Catalyst, said. “Led by Rushil Goel, on the heels of his success as a product leader at Samsara, Nirvana is delivering an amazing product for customers and agents alike.”
Goel said that fleet insurance is only the beginning for Nirvana.
“One day soon this use of smart data to mitigate risk will spread to factories and warehouses, for a safer and more efficient nationwide supply chain,” Goel said.
The Trucker News Staff produces engaging content for not only TheTrucker.com, but also The Trucker Newspaper, which has been serving the trucking industry for more than 30 years. With a focus on drivers, the Trucker News Staff aims to provide relevant, objective content pertaining to the trucking segment of the transportation industry. The Trucker News Staff is based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
