附近上门

This morning, another startup sprouted a horn by joining the unicorn club. , a company that works in the home insurance space, , valuing it at $1 billion .

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That another private tech company is now a unicorn is hardly news in 2019; so many companies have met that valuation mark that it鈥檚 nearly mundane. That another insurance startup is now a unicorn is slightly notable, but there are a number of highly-valued companies in the space: , another tech startup in the insurance space, is .

But there is something about Hippo that did catch our eye this morning. Namely that the round鈥檚 lead investor was . Bond, you may recall, is the new fund headed by former Kleiner Perkins impresario .

(附近上门 News has provided running coverage of Meeker鈥檚 famous Internet reports, along with notes concerning her exit from Kleiner and the founding of Bond.)

In , Hippo said it plans to use the new capital to expand its geographic footprint, 鈥渄eepen鈥� its direct-to-consumer product portfolio and partner with more companies. Current partners include lender Better.com, homebuilder Lennar and homeowner insurers, among others.

The company also said it saw a 鈥渞ecord twelve months,鈥� with premiums growing more than ten times. Bond General Partner described Hippo as 鈥渙ne of the highest growth companies鈥� in both the insurance and fintech spaces.

Hippo has attracted material investment since its founding in 2015. Indeed, the company raised . The company added on . Most recently before today鈥檚 investment, Hippo . And , the firm has just under $210 million in private capital to-date.

For fun, that means Hippo has generated around $5 in value, according to its investors, for every dollar that it has raised; though of course its recent investors expect the company鈥檚 valuation to rise as it deploys its new funding.

, , , and have written the most checks individually to the company across Hippo鈥檚 known rounds thus far.

Hippo is a company that hopes to use technology to price its product more cheaply than traditional insurance offerings. If it is successful in that effort, especially at scale, it could save consumers money. But it will require homes to be a bit more wired-up than they are today. Fortune notes that the company wants to use in-home smart technology to offer lower rates. So, there is some element of data-sharing to encourage the company鈥檚 model.

Hippo is headquartered in Palo Alto, but also has offices in Dallas and Austin, Texas. Despite founding the company in 2015, Hippo did not actually launch its insurance marketplace until April of 2017.