Pie raises $315M in round led by Centerbridge, Allianz

Pie Insurance Services Inc. raised $315 million in equity funding from backers led by Centerbridge Partners LP and Allianz SE’s venture-capital arm, even as many early stage investors pull back from financial-technology startups.

Pie, which has executive offices in Denver and Washington, focuses on selling insurance to small businesses, and partners with SiriusPoint to issue its policies. The capital generated in the series D funding round will help the company bring policy issuance fully in-house, Pie said in a statement Monday.

The spigot of venture-capital funding that supercharged fintechs in 2021 has largely dried up in this year’s bear market. A July report from analytics firm CB Insights showed that funding for fintechs in the second quarter fell 46% from the same time last year to $20.4 billion.

“It’s no secret that growth-stage startups, and specifically insurtechs, are facing a challenging fundraising environment,” Pie co-founder and Chief Executive Officer John Swigart said in the statement.

In an interview, the CEO said the capital injection from new and existing investors “is a testament and a validation of our approach that we’ve had from the beginning.”