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Sixfold, a startup using generative AI to underwrite insurance, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Salesforce Ventures.

Why it matters: The tech giant has aggressively invested in generative AI companies, with the goal of leading the pack in the AI race.

How it works: Founded by a team including two early employees at Unqork, Sixfold works with insurers to help train AI underwriting models based on the company's past business.

The models then suggest whether a policy should be underwritten based on the company's risk appetite. A human makes the final call.

Sixfold started in commercial insurance and recently moved into life and health.

"Commercial and life are where most manual underwriting is done," says CEO Alex Schmelkin. "That's why we picked those two segments."

Companies in the personal insurance space heavily use algorithms to search public data on driving history, for example, Schmelkin says,

But commercial insurance has lagged. Much of the data is locked up in self-submitted PDF documents, Yelp reviews, and government filings — unstructured data where generative AI has an edge, he says.

Sixfold makes money with an annual subscription fee, and it takes a less-than-1% cut from each premium written.

Customers include Axis Insurance and Generali.

Other investors in the round include Scale Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners and Crystal Venture Partners.

Follow the money: Salesforce Ventures earmarked $500 million for investments in the AI space last year and has placed eight bets out of that fund.

It led a $200 million-plus round in Hugging Face in August, followed by leading a $106 million round in Together AI in March. It's now participating in a $450 million round in Canada's Cohere, per Reuters.

"We wanted to be at the forefront of the next wave of the computing industry," Salesforce Ventures managing director Nowi Kallen says, noting the insurance sector is a significant part of the tech giant's business.

Context: That comes as analysts say companies increasing their AI spending are shrinking their outlays for cloud software technologies like Salesforce.

Exclusive: Salesforce Ventures leads $15M round in insurance AI company

The tech giant has been aggressively investing in generative AI companies.

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Fintech

Sixfold, a startup using generative AI to underwrite insurance, raised $15 million in Series A funding led by Salesforce Ventures.Why it matters: The tech giant has aggressively invested in generative AI companies, with the goal of <a class="gtmContentClick" data-vars-link-text="leading the pack in the AI race" data-vars-click-url="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/02/salesforce-artificial-intelligence-vc" data-vars-content-id="33d7c940-3352-4b6a-accc-3d2436d607bf" data-vars-headline="Exclusive: Salesforce Ventures leads $15M round in insurance AI company" data-vars-event-category="story" data-vars-sub-category="story" data-vars-item="in_content_link" href="https://www.axios.com/2023/09/02/salesforce-artificial-intelligence-vc" target="_self">leading the pack in the AI race</a>.

Exclusive: Salesforce Ventures leads $15M round in insurance AI company

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