Zendrive spins out commercial insurance startup

Insurance telematics provider Zendrive has announced the spin-out of a new commercial insurance company, Fairmatic, which will leverage Zendrive’s data for commercial fleet insurance. Zendrive co-founder and chief technology officer Pankaj Risbood has been appointed as Zendrive CEO, with co-founder and CEO Jonathan Matus transitioning to become chairman of the board and founding CEO of Fairmatic.

Since its founding, Zendrive’s Mobility Risk Intelligence (MRI) platform has analyzed more than 200 billion miles of data from hundreds of millions of users around the world. It has also detected hundreds of thousands of collisions, making it the world’s most accurate and robust smartphone-centric telematics provider, the company said.

Risbood has been assuming broader corporate responsibilities since the beginning of this year. Under his leadership, the company has added 50 million users to its network in the US alone.

“I’m delighted to be taking over as CEO to help the company expand further by tailoring solutions across the entire customer insurance life cycle,” Risbood said. “Our vision remains to help make insurance fairer and smarter through our partners while making roads safer for consumers. We will announce more corporate development initiatives and partnerships in the coming months.”

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“With Zendrive’s success in transforming insurance data and analytics, I’m now focused on transforming one of the biggest sectors, commercial insurance,” Matus said. “I leave Zendrive in Pankaj’s extremely capable hands and look forward to continued growth and success for Zendrive and Fairmatic.”

“Zendrive continues to leverage its industry-leading platform to develop new business models while staying core to its mission of making driving safer for all of us,” said Brian Yee, partner at ACME Capital and board member at Zendrive. “Given the traction and scale of Zendrive’s insurance business, we felt it was the appropriate time to spin out Fairmatic to maximize value for both companies.”