- Gradient AI, a leading enterprise software provider of AI solutions, announced it raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Forte Ventures and Sandbox
Gradient AI — a leading enterprise software provider of artificial intelligence solutions — announced it raised $6 million in Series A funding led by Forte Ventures and Sandbox Insurtech Ventures. This round of funding also includes participation from Gradient’s existing investor MassMutual Ventures.
How does Gradient work? Gradient’s artificial intelligence helps commercial insurers automate and improve underwriting results, reduce claim costs, and improve operational efficiencies.
And the Gradient software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform boasts a proprietary dataset comprised of tens of millions of claims — which is complemented with several economic, health, and litigation datasets. This aggregation of data provides out-of-the-box claims and underwriting precision for new clients and it is continuously refined with client-specific data over time.
“The Gradient platform helps our customers’ claims and underwriting teams make better decisions more efficiently, which allows our customers to write more profitable business, minimize claims, and improve the profitability of their book,” said Gradient’s CEO Stan Smith in a statement.
The Gradient analytics suite addresses the needs of insurance carriers, managing general agents (MGAs), professional employer organizations (PEOs), third party administrators (TPAs), insurance pools, and other insurance professionals with a broad suite of claims and underwriting solutions.
“Gradient will play a critical role in progressing the widespread adoption of ML-based analytics platforms across commercial insurance over the next several years,” added Tom Hawkins, founder and Managing Partner at Forte Ventures. “We’re excited to be supporting the Gradient team as it catalyzes change in an industry that, at the end of the day, impacts the health and financial outcomes of millions of Americans.”
The artificial intelligence predictions for claims management, risk ranking, case-level reserving, medical treatment indicators, subrogation, large losses, settlement, fraud, and litigation are boosting productivity, optimizing operations, and improving decision making. And Gradient’s platform delivers fully automated integration into customers’ own claims and underwriting platforms via API thus enabling automated claims workflows and straight-through processing of policy applications.
“It is clear at this point that carriers, risk pools, TPAs, and PEOs that aren’t implementing artificial intelligence in their claims and underwriting processes will significantly underperform relative to their peers,” explained Chris Zock, managing director of Sandbox Insurtech Ventures.
Gradient’s CRO and Head of Field Operations (formerly Executive Director at Origami Risk) Aaron Shapiro joined the company in December 2018.
“I was impressed by the substantial and immediate ROI delivered by the Gradient platform and its ability to scale to address any size organization,” commented Shapiro. “Whether a commercial insurer is looking to implement automated underwriting or deliver decision support within current underwriting workflows, Gradient’s solutions enable data-driven decisions that lead to improved financial performance for our customers, as well as better treatment and outcomes for individuals.”
Gradient’s team of expert data scientists and insurance technology experts have experience in building wildly successful insurance technology companies with the most satisfied customers in the industry. And Gradient focuses exclusively on delivering measurable results in underwriting and claims operations.
“We are thrilled to have such a strong syndicate working with Gradient to accelerate the adoption of algorithmic claims management and underwriting across insurance verticals,” noted Eric Emmons, managing director at MassMutual Ventures.
