Tugboat announced that it has raised an oversubscribed $3 million seed round to scale its consumer insurance support platform. The round was led by ResilienceVC, with participation from South Dakota First, gener8tor, Sure Ventures, Acumen America, and other strategic investors.
Tugboat provides homeowners with expert-level insurance claim support, helping policyholders document damage, challenge denials, compare estimates, prepare dispute letters, navigate regulatory filings, and negotiate settlements.
The company was founded by Cameron Mooney and Aaron Mooney, veteran insurance adjusters who have resolved thousands of property claims across multiple carriers.
Tugboat said its platform is designed to help property owners navigate an insurance claims system where carriers often have teams of adjusters, attorneys, and claims data, while homeowners may lack the same expertise.
The company offers access to its platform for $99 per year. Its technology uses a multi-pass agentic AI pipeline to analyze carrier correspondence, generate denial disputes, support regulatory filings, and provide step-by-step claim guidance.
Tugboat’s intelligence engine is built on more than 10,000 real-claims patterns and is designed to improve as it processes more claims.
The company said climate-related disasters are increasing the need for claim support. Tugboat cited NOAA data showing that the average time between billion-dollar disasters has fallen from 82 days in the 1980s to 19 days over the past 10 years.
Following the California wildfires, Tugboat members recovered an average of $54,000 above what they were able to secure before using the platform, without entering a representation agreement.
Across 30 states, Tugboat said policyholders have recovered more than $15 million in additional settlements.
The funding will support three priorities: building a fully integrated platform with API connections to major property management systems, accelerating embedded B2B distribution through partnerships with multifamily property owners, lenders, and restoration networks, and sustaining Tugboat’s free disaster-response program during designated disaster events.
KEY QUOTES:
“We built Tugboat because property owners are being left behind in a system that optimizes for everyone else. Tugboat is the first platform built entirely for the person on the other side of the claim, there before disaster strikes and supporting them when it does.”
Cameron Mooney, Co-Founder and CEO of Tugboat
“Tugboat creates massive value for its users, supporting them through a moment of extreme vulnerability as they struggle to navigate an extremely complex insurance claims process that is often incentivized to delay or deny payments. We see a huge opportunity for Tugboat with their market expanding rapidly as climate-related disaster events increase and insurance coverage narrows. Moreover, the founding team has deep insurance expertise and is building a compounding data moat that uniquely positions them to solve this challenge.”
Tahira Dosani, General Partner and Co-Founder of ResilienceVC
