In 2016, David Perez launched Lumen Insurance Technologies when he recognized an unmet need in the marketplace for someone to provide insurance policies to funded technology startups.
Lumen’s clients have included Opcity, Strangeworks, Vault, previously known Student Loan Genius, Rocket Dollar, Valkyrie Intelligence, Kronologic, Living Security and others.
Lumen, based at Galvanize in downtown Austin, provides policies for startups with products like directors’ and officers’ liability insurance, general liability, and commercial property insurance
In this episode of Ideas to Invoices, Perez talks about the maturation of Austin’s technology industry, greater access to funding, Austin’s InsureTech boom and opportunities for further growth.
At Galvanize, Perez has met several of his clients right when they were just starting out. For example, he provided Ben Rubenstein and Michael Lam with policies throughout the lifecycle of their startup, Opcity before it sold for $210 million to Rupert Murdoch’s Realtor.com.
“If you look at that situation, what agent in their right mind would go work with a company that is two employees and no revenue,” Perez said. “At first glance, it doesn’t look right.”
But dig a little deeper and look at Rubenstein’s background and it’s evident he’s special, Perez said. Rubenstein was a co-founder of Yodle, which Web.com bought for $342 million in 2016. Opcity raised $27 million in Series A funding and hired several hundred employees before being acquired by Realtor.com.
“We rode that entire lifecycle with them,” Perez said.
Lumen has customers all over the globe but all of them have ties to Austin. The company plans to first expand throughout Texas and then go into other states.
Perez doesn’t see himself as a disrupter in the insurance industry but as an early adopter of technology tools to transform a legacy industry into the new digital economy. That’s a big reason why he co-founded the booming InsureTech meetup in Austin which has more than 400 members. He wanted to be on the cutting edge of technology in the industry, he said.
“I see Lumen as more of a playground for technology or InsureTech which is why I help run the InsureTech meetup,” Perez said.
The tech talent in Austin is attracting the insurance technology startups like Hippo, which has a big office in Austin and USAA, based in San Antonio, has its design and innovation lab in Austin. Other hot InsureTech startups include The Zebra, a marketplace for car and home insurance, Life by Spot, on the spot life insurance, and Sana Benefits, a healthcare insurance startup.
There are a lot of companies moving to Austin from the West Coast, but they are also moving here from other countries in Europe and Asia, Perez said.
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Correction: This article has been updated to provide a correct listing of Lumen’s customers.