Launches Expansion to Thailand, Qoala Acquires Local Startup "Fairdee"

Startups insurtech Qoala announced its business expansion into Thailand as well as launched a strategic acquisition of local startup Fairdee. This collaboration aims to accelerate scalability and technology innovation across all of Qoala's businesses. Learning from Indonesia and Thailand will strengthen the company's digital competencies and offerings.

Fairdee itself has been helping digitize independent brokers through its platform in Thailand since 2019. With the acquisition of FairDee, Qoala is now entering Thailand, Southeast Asia's largest consumer insurance market.

In the last 18 months, FairDee claims to have increased its annual Gross Premium by 7x amid the pandemic under the command of its founders Yujun Chean, Prateek Jogani, and Thanasak Hoontrakul. The entire FairDee team will join Qoala to continue its forays into the Thai market.

By leveraging technology, Qoala's vision is to provide affordable and relevant insurance products for the dynamic needs of consumers in Southeast Asia. In line with Qoala, Fairdee is also said to have the same vision on how insurance can be reorganized through digitalization.

"With this acquisition, we are taking a major leap forward in our regional ambition to become a insurtech number one in Southeast Asia. Given the shared vision and expertise that the FairDee team was able to develop from the start, we are confident to continue serving the millions of underinsured people in the region," said Qoala Founder & CEO Harshet Lunani.

Founded in 2018, Qoala has partnered with insurance companies such as Allianz, Zurich, Chubb, Great Eastern, Tokio Marine. Apart from that, it has also become a strategic collaboration with digital companies such as OYO, Grab, Traveloka, OVO, Dana, Momo creating the best products and service experiences for approximately 3 years.

Armed with funding from Sequoia Capital, Centauri Fund, Flourish Ventures, Mirae Asset Management, Central Capital Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, and SeedPlus; Qoala has ambitions to become a startup insurtech the largest regional scale in Southeast Asia by 2021.

Previously, Qoala had already expanded its regional footprint to Malaysia and Vietnam in the past year. Throughout 2020, Qoala claims to have grown 6x in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. Harshet emphasized that access to insurance is very important, especially during a pandemic, to protect people affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite being one of the fastest growing regions globally over the last decade, insurance penetration in Southeast Asia is only 3,77%, which is only half of the global insurance penetration rate.

According to the Ernst and Young report, the trend of the InsurTech market in Southeast Asia will continue to change rapidly over the next three to five years related to the adoption of technology changes by businesses. Conventional business models and roles such as manual recording and verification are expected to fade soon. With more than 40% of the middle class population who are not yet insurance literate in Southeast Asia. The insurance business penetration opportunity through technology media is very large

Apart from Qoala, similar startups PasarPolis currently also operating in Vietnam and Thailand. With more or less the same market conditions in Indonesia, PasarPolis attract market penetration strategy by partnering with major digital platforms there and offering affordable insurance products.

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