Polygrade has emerged from stealth with $6.3 million in funding to build an AI-native claims management platform for the warranty industry. Construct Capital, American Family Ventures and Nine Four Ventures provided the financing.
Polygrade is initially focused on home warranty claims, where the company is using specialized AI agents to perform work across the claims lifecycle rather than simply recording information or routing tasks.
The platform covers first notice of loss, pre-dispatch triage, authorization, parts procurement and payment.
Polygrade’s agents operate within policies, thresholds and rules established by each warranty company, with exceptions escalated to human employees.
The company said the technology can help determine what is wrong with an appliance or other covered item, recommend the appropriate action and assist with resolving the claim.
Potential benefits include avoiding unnecessary service visits, accelerating repairs, reducing claims severity, lowering operating expenses and speeding contractor payments.
Polygrade operates above existing warranty technology systems rather than requiring customers to replace their core infrastructure.
It is also building an intelligence graph incorporating policies, claims, decisions and outcomes, allowing information from previous claims to inform future decisions.
The platform is already in production with enterprise warranty companies, including Fidelity National Home Warranty.
Polygrade also works with suppliers including Encompass, UED, Sibi and Marcone, while Cinch Home Services uses the company for appliance dispatch triage and parts sourcing.
Polygrade was founded by David Steckel, Eui Chung and Kaustubh Vongole.
Steckel previously founded Setter, which was acquired by Thumbtack, and later served as Chief Product Officer of Sears Home Services.
Chung spent nearly 30 years with Sears and Transformco and led Sears Home Services’ AI transformation.
Vongole previously led fulfillment products and AI strategy.
Polygrade will use the financing to grow its Forward Deployed Engineering, go-to-market and partner enablement teams.
The company also plans to expand beyond home warranties into extended warranty, OEM warranty and equipment breakdown insurance.
KEY QUOTES:
“Warranty is a massive industry that never really got its modern software moment. The technology that exists is largely designed to keep track of a claim and move it through a workflow. We built Polygrade to understand the claim and act on it. If AI can help determine what’s wrong before a contractor gets in a truck, find the right part at the right price, make an authorization decision and get a contractor paid faster, the economics of the entire claim change.”
“There are enormous categories where a claim ends with something physical needing to be repaired or replaced. We think the infrastructure for managing those claims is going to look very different in an AI-native world.”
David Steckel, Founder and CEO of Polygrade
“Encompass is excited about its partnership with Polygrade. Encompass has long been a leading supplier of OEM replacement parts to the warranty industry, and this partnership strengthens our commitment to helping warranty providers improve parts availability, access more competitive pricing, and deliver the industry’s highest service levels.”
Robert Coolidge, President and CEO of Encompass
“David, Eui and Kaustubh have an unusual combination of deep domain expertise and technical experience. They’ve run these operations at scale and understand why applying AI to a complex enterprise workflow requires much more than building a model. Polygrade has the potential to become the intelligence and execution layer for a massive category that has been largely overlooked by modern software.”
Rachel Holt, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Construct Capital
“We hold new technology to a simple standard: it has to improve the customer’s claim experience right away and lower costs. Polygrade accomplished both of those goals, while not requiring a wholesale replacement of the systems warranty companies depend on. We take our time, and we validate pilots before we scale. Polygrade stood out for bringing practical AI into our existing workflows, from smarter claims intake to parts procurement.”
Jason Manns, EVP and COO at Fidelity National Home Warranty
“The value has been tangible, and the pace has been impressive. We have streamlined processes, improved efficiency, and solved real operational problems on the parts side.”
Sandy Camera, Vice President of Service Network Operations at Cinch Home Services
