US insurtech 1Fort has raised $US7.5 million ($11.72 million) for its artificial intelligence platform, which it says saves brokers up to two hours per submission and increases their bind rate by up to a fifth on average. 

More than a dozen leading brokerages and insurers, including Arch, CFC, Markel, The Hartford and Tokio Marine HCC, have signed up for the platform, and revenue rose nearly 200% month-over-month last year. 

“This investment enables us to supercharge our AI roadmap and expand our brokers and carrier partnerships to transform business insurance,” co‑founder and CEO Anthony Marshi said. 

"The trillion-dollar business insurance industry is broken – 70% of it relies on brokers still buried in manual and repetitive work across endless email threads and PDFs.1Fort is leading the way, starting by empowering brokers to obtain coverage from top-tier insurers on autopilot.” 

Co-founder and COO Toby Hung formerly spent four years at Google and worked in project management at AIA.  

Brokers can quote directly for their appointed markets or receive wholesale access to cyber, professional and management liability, and tech errors and omissions insurance. 

The platform uses AI to auto-fill insurance applications, retrieve quotes from underwriters, compare coverage and integrate payment and finance options. Risk management software also helps proactively prevent claims or losses. 

“Leading commercial insurance brokers save eight hours a week and close 20% more deals with 1Fort's AI solutions,” New York-based 1Fort says. 

The oversubscribed funding round was led by Bonfire Ventures. Its MD Jim Andelman says modernising legacy workflows in insurance “is one of today’s most exciting opportunities”. 

“1Fort has already built impressive momentum and is poised to revolutionise this trillion-dollar market,” he said.