The start-up is among four purely online insurers that started operations last year as part of a push by the Hong Kong Insurance Authority to promote the use of more technology by the insurance sector to reduce costs and enhance services. Such companies can only use the internet and apps to sell their products and cannot hire agents.
“The success of our fundraising exercise indicates investors are still confident about digital insurance start-ups in Hong Kong,” said Alvin Kwock Yin-lun, OneDegree’s co-founder and a former JPMorgan banker.
The company is, in fact, just the latest Hong Kong start-up to announce its fundraising plans over the past seven days, which suggests that the city’s firms remain attractive to investors despite Beijing’s regulatory crackdown, which has since July created a lot of volatility in the stock markets in Hong Kong and mainland China.
For instance, DayDayCook, a Hong Kong-based recipe hub founded by Norma Chu, an online influencer and former HSBC banker, said on Thursday last week that it would list in the United States through a merger with a New York-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). A day later, Hong Kong logistics company GoGoX filed to go public in the city.
Kwock said OneDegree would keep an open mind about going public, and that it would like to develop its business on a larger scale first. The proceeds from its latest funding round will be used for developing new products and markets, and doubling its headcount in the next one year to more than 300 people.
Source: South China Morning Post