Exclusive: Inventus Capital sold out 1.67% stake in PolicyBazaar for $25 Mn

Early-stage venture capital firm Inventus Capital has offloaded $25 million worth stake in Gurugram-based online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar through a secondary transaction, according to two people familiar with the details of the deal.

The fresh transaction for PolicyBazaar has come around four months after the company closed a $150 million funding deal with Chinese technology conglomerate Tencent at a valuation of $1.5 billion in September.

“Inventus Capital has divested 1.67% of Etechaces Marketing and Consulting, which owns PolicyBazaar, PaisaBazaar through a secondary transaction," said one of the sources mentioned above, requesting anonymity.

Inventus led $5 million Series B round in PolicyBazaar in 2013. While Entrackr couldn't ascertain who all bought shares of the Bengaluru-based VC firm, sources emphasised that several family offices, PE firms, and FIIs bought shares from Inventus.

According to the person quoted above, the deal materialized in the second half of last month. This is likely to be the second secondary transaction at PolicyBazaar in the last 7-8 months. 

A TOI report last July said that New York's Tiger Global Management was looking to exit PolicyBazaar via an investment from SoftBank and Tencent. However, it’s not clear whether the two picked up Tiger Global's stake in the firm.

Responding to Entrackr's queries, Yashish Dahiya, PolicyBazaar's CEO, said that Inventus invested $3 million in 2012, and has sold half of their stake in the company for $25 million. Inventus has retained the remaining stake.

Etechaces, with over a decade of existence, started with PolicyBazaar as an online insurance intermediary. Later, it forayed into the lending market with a separate company — Paisabazaar.

At present, PolicyBazaar has the largest market share in online insurance. According to the second source,  it has about 80% market share in online aggregation segment. “PolicyBazaar has a gross written premium of over $600 million while Paisa Bazaar disbursed loan worth $.1.3 billion,” he said. He also requested anonymity as he's not allowed to speak with the media.

Besides Inventus and Tencent, Etechaces counts Chiratae, InfoEdge, Tiger Global, Wellington, among others as its backers. The company competes with Coverfox, Easypolicy, Acko, Turtlemint and BankBazaar amongst others.

Corrigendum: The headline and story has been updated to reflect that Inventus has sold out stake worth $25 million in PolicyBazaar