UAE’s yallacompare raises $4.25m in new funding round

UAE’s finance comparison website yallacompare.com has raised $4.25m of capital from Kuwait-based Gulf Insurance Group.

Gulf Insurance Group (gig) is the largest insurance group in Kuwait in terms of written and retained premiums, with operations in life and non-life as well as Takaful insurance.

Jon Richards, CEO of yallacompare said: “We are delighted to add gig as an investor and partner and have big plans for the next few years. I believe that the combination of gig’s regional and industry expertise and yallacompare’s digital capability will combine to deliver innovative products via customer friendly channels to consumers across the region. ’’

“We are all too aware of how fortunate we are to bring in fresh capital at this time and we very much appreciate the courage that gig have shown to invest in yallacompare in this turbulent economic climate. ’’

“I would like to congratulate everyone in gig and yallacompare with this new acquisition and expansion. I am confident that this partnership will return several success stories and prosperity between gig and yallacompare as well as our valuable customers and stakeholders,” noted group CEO, Gulf Insurance Group, Khalid Al-Hasan.

“Gig’s acquisition in yallacompare is an integral part of gig’s digitalisation strategy, which aims to strengthen its digital distribution channels and provide an online gateway for the group to expand its insurance and services reaching out to online costumers. gig is keen to strengthen and develop its digital services and this acquisition is a step for the group in the adoption of digitisation; the characteristic of this era. ’’

Previous investors in yallacompare include: STC Ventures, Wamda Capital, DSO, and New York based Argo Ventures.

yallacompare operates insurance aggregators in the UAE, Kuwait and Egypt, and currently employs over 120 people between their Dubai and Egypt offices.

Since its launch in 2011, yallacompare accounts for more than 75 per cent of online insurance transactions in the UAE. Having recently announced partnerships with Smart Dubai, Etisalat, National Bonds and many others, the company expects to double its market share by the end of 2020.

Read: UAE start-up Yallacompare raises $8m in new funding round

Gulf Insurance has companies in Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Its reported consolidated assets stand at $2.5bn as of December 31, 2019.