Nirvana Insurance raises $100M Series D, nearly doubles valuation to $1.5B in nine months

Exclusive: AI Insurance Startup Nirvana Nearly Doubles Valuation To $1.5B with $100M Series D

Nirvana Insurance, an AI-based commercial insurance platform for the trucking industry, has raised a $100 million Series D round at a $1.5 billion valuation, it tells Crunchbase News exclusively. The raise comes just over nine months after the startup raised $80 million in a Series C round of funding at an $830 million valuation. Valor Equity Partners led the latest financing, which the company described as "preemptive." Previous lead backers Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst also doubled down "significantly." Put simply, Nirvana's goal is to build "the world's first AI-powered operating system for insurance." The startup uses real-time driving telematics and 30 billion miles of truck-driving data to build and manage insurance policies for truckers. CEO Rushil Goel started Nirvana in 2021 after spending years running product at Samsara, an AI-powered fleet management and safety platform. There, he said, he saw firsthand how heavily safe and responsible trucking fleets "were penalized by the rising costs of one-size-fits-all insurance rates based on old industry data." "It was survival stakes," he recalled. "Expensive policies literally drove some fleets out of business." His goal with Nirvana is to use the telematics data those fleets already generate "to build a more fair and transparent model." Nirvana has trained its models on more than 30 billion driving miles and vehicles' telematics that show details such as speed, selected routes and driver behavior. "This allows us to reward safe fleets with more accurate and often lower premiums, helping them save money and making roads safe," Goel told Crunchbase News. He also claims the company is able to underwrite "with speed and precision" and "price risk in real time." On top of providing insurance, Nirvana claims it gives fleets the tools to reduce accidents before they happen. The raise comes at a time when insurtech funding overall is down, and deal counts are at a multiyear record low. So far in 2025, global insurance-related startups have pulled in about $4 billion in seed-through growth-stage financing, per Crunchbase data -- less than one-fourth of the 2021 peak dollars raised -- with deal counts also on the decline. VCs bet Nirvana can transform 'trillion-dollar industry stuck in the past' Nirvana raised its $3.2 million seed round in January 2021, co-led by General Catalyst and Lightspeed. In total, it has raised more than $260 million in funding. While Goel declined to reveal hard revenue figures, he said that Nirvana has doubled its year-over-year premium growth. It has also doubled its staff to around 200 compared to a year ago. Nirvana says it serves "thousands" of motor carriers. Its customers range from single-owner and -operator carriers to fleets with more than 500 trucks. The startup's revenue model is to charge an annual insurance term with upfront discounts based on the historical telematics data it analyzes with its proprietary models. Interestingly, Nirvana is not Goel's first startup venture. Besides serving as the VP/GM of fleet at Samsara, he also co-founded AirCare, a digital health startup. Vivek Pattipati, partner at Valor Equity Partners, said in a release that this round isn't just about reinforcing Nirvana's approach to proprietary telematics data, deep machine learning expertise, and execution in underwriting and claims. "It's an opportunity for us to stake a claim in redefining an industry and exploring how Nirvana will apply its "N of 1" AI capabilities to benefit customers beyond market-leading insurance products," he said. Lightspeed partner Raviraj Jain believes that Nirvana has "executed flawlessly" since the firm first invested in its seed round. He said: "Commercial insurance is a trillion-dollar industry stuck in the past, and it's been incredible to see how quickly Nirvana's AI models have been able to deliver material benefits to customers."

AI-native trucking insurance startup Nirvana Tech bags $100M late-stage round - SiliconANGLE

AI-native trucking insurance startup Nirvana Tech bags $100M late-stage round Commercial trucking insurance startup Nirvana Tech Inc. said today it has raised $100 million in a late-stage round of funding that will fuel its expansion into new industry segments. The startup has built what it describes as the world's first artificial intelligence-native operating system for insurance, combining telematics data with specialized large language models that help to assess drivers' risk and provide personalized safety insights. The software aims to help trucking fleets to drive more safely and therefore reduce the cost of their insurance premiums. Nirvana's platform provides real-time insights on various aspects of a fleet's operations, with telematics capturing data on driver behavior, including harsh braking, acceleration and cornering, in order to build up a comprehensive picture of each one's driving patterns. Meanwhile, the safety intelligence component integrates this telematics data with Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration guidelines to create personalized insights for each driver and reduce risk. Instead of relying on traditional metrics, Nirvana's telematics help to generate a more accurate assessment of each fleet's overall performance and safety, analyzing their daily operations as well as isolated incidents. With this data, Nirvana is able to optimize fleets' insurance premiums and help them generate average savings of up to 20% when they demonstrate safe driving behavior. The startup also tries to streamline the claims process when accidents do happen, enabling fleets to minimize downtime relating to the need for repairs and maintenance. Nirvana Chief Executive Rushil Goel said the insurance industry is ideal for AI-driven transformation, because its value is based on multivariable equations and models applied intelligently to dynamic data. "We're building insurance the way it needs to exist in the AI era, with data at the center and models trained on billions of real-world miles," he said. The startup says there's an urgent need for its platform, because hundreds of trucking companies have folded in the last couple of years as a result of financial problems - and rising insurance premiums, along with increasing fuel costs, are a big part of that. Now, having gotten a foothold in the commercial trucking segment, it believes it can apply its telematics-based risk assessment model to other industries that require insurance. The Series D round was led by Valor Equity Partners and saw participation from big name venture capitalists such as Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst. Valor's Vivek Pattipati said Nirvana has the potential to become a "generational company" because it has built an AI-native solution that's designed to address a fundamental pain point in a massive legacy industry that's rich in data but also bogged down by inefficient processes. "This round isn't just about reinforcing Nirvana's approach to proprietary telematics data, deep machine learning expertise and compelling execution in underwriting and claims," he said. "It's an opportunity for us to stake a claim in redefining an industry and exploring how Nirvana will apply its AI capabilities to benefit customers beyond market-leading insurance products."

AI-based commercial trucking insurer Nirvana raises $100m

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. Previous lead investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst are also doubling down significantly after Nirvana's first quarter 2025 Series C, since when the firm has nearly doubled its valuation to $1.5 billion. Nirvana uses real-time fleet and driving telematics data to power underwriting, claims, pricing, and fleet intelligence for carriers and logistics operators across the US. The firm says its predictive models trained on the telematics data of more than 30 billion miles of fleet driving data, have led to up to 20% upfront safety discounts for customers, faster underwriting, and industry leading claims satisfaction and claims resolution speed. Nirvana CEO Rushil Goel says: "At Nirvana, we're building insurance the way it needs to exist in the AI era: with data at the centre, models trained on billions of real-world miles, and an OS that can redefine underwriting, claims, and services for the industry at scale."

Nirvana Insurance Raises $100 Million for AI Operating System | PYMNTS.com

"Telematics and AI have changed that equation," wrote Co-Founder and CEO Rushil Goel. "For the first time, it became possible to continuously learn from real-world driving behavior at scale, and to rebuild insurance around live signals rather than static assumptions." He added that Nirvana saw a chance to rethink that model, building the company as an "AI-native issuer" that employs data, machine learning and human expertise to improve and accelerate decisions on pricing, underwriting and claims. "Because of that foundation, our teams can test, ship and iterate far faster than traditional carriers," Goel added. "Over the past year alone, being AI-native has allowed us to release dozens of new features and platform enhancements, rapidly experiment across the insurance life cycle, and turn real-world outcomes into immediate improvements." The company said its systems let safe fleets get upfront discounts of up to 20%, based on driving behavior instead of "broad averages." The systems can also "analyze risk and deliver precise quotes in minutes, giving fleets back their most valuable resource, time," Goel said. Research by PYMNTS Intelligence has shown how crucial quicker decisions can be for the insurance industry. "The industry's math has changed. Affordable coverage attracts buyers; fast claims keep them coming back," PYMNTS wrote earlier this year. "Forty-six percent of insurance claimants say payment velocity is their top priority -- eclipsing concerns like convenience, choice or security." Meanwhile, PYMNTS took a closer look at the way AI is impacting the insurance sector earlier this year in an interview with Aviad Pinkovezky, CEO of InsurTech platform First Connect. He said that eventually, the technology will affect all aspects of the industry once the regulatory frameworks are hammered out, touching everything from pricing to claims construction. First Connect's AI efforts have expedited the process of analyzing and approving, or rejecting, errors and omissions policies that agents need to upload to the company as part of their onboarding experience. "There is some manual, human validation here, but at the end of the day, AI has proven to be a game changer," Pinkovezky said.