Next Insurance, an insurtech seeking to transform small business insurance, announced on Thursday it has acquired Juniper Labs, a provider of alternative open data and underwriting technology focused on small businesses. Next Insurance reported that it and Juniper Labs will continue to develop enhanced machine-learning capabilities and tools to strengthen the omnichannel customer experience.
According to Next Insurance, Juniper Labs provides better risk transparency by leveraging open data and machine learning to build tools for streamlined data collection and automated underwriting.
“Using natural language processing, Juniper Labs blends fragmented data sources and unstructured content to provide more structured insights that strengthen the confidence and predictive power of their models, ultimately allowing for more precise risk assessment and a simpler customer experience.”
Sofya Pogreb, COO of Next Insurance, spoke about the acquisition by stating:
“This strategic acquisition of Juniper Labs’ technology and expertise in workers’ compensation will deepen our investments in relevant technologies such as machine learning, which will help scale pricing and decision making. We look forward to bringing on the Juniper Labs team to further our goal of being the one-stop-shop for small business insurance.”
Lance Poole, Co-Founder and CEO of Juniper Labs, added:
“Next Insurance and Juniper Labs believe that data is a key differentiator in the effort to provide a better online experience at a more affordable price. We’re excited to join this like-minded company and contribute to its continued success.”
Next Insurance recently secured $250 million through its Series D funding round, which was led by CapitalG, Alphabet’s independent growth fund, with participation from FinTLV, a global insurtech VC, and existing investor Munich RE Group. This is notably the first acquisition since the investment.