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Indonesia’s PasarPolis is now able to underwrite its own products, making it one of Indonesia’s first full-stack insurtechs. This means PasarPolis will be able to offer new products and work with partners like Tokopedia, Gojek, Traveloka, Xiaomi and IKEA Indonesia to create custom insurance policies.

PasarPolis is able to underwrite insurance products because of its strategic partnership with Tap Insurance. Tap Insurance received a full license for insurance underwriting from OJK (Otoritas Jasa Keuangan, or the Financial Services Authority of Indonesia).

Cleosent Randing, the founder and CEO of PasarPolis, told TechCrunch that the first products from the strategic partnership will include fire and vehicle insurance.

Founded in 2015, PasarPolis has raised over $59 million in total to date and is backed by investors like Gojek, Tokopedia, Traveloka, Leapfrog and SBI. Its policies include travel, home content, logistics, electronic devices, life and vehicle insurance.

PasarPolis currently has 60,000 registered agents in Indonesia, and partners with 50 insurance providers. It says it has served more than 80 million customers and issued one billion policies between 2019 and 2021, partnering with 40 companies to distribute products.

Distribution partners include Shopee, Tokopedia, Gojek and Xiaomi. Customers can add micro-insurance policies to their purchases from their platform for about 5,000 to 20,000 Indonesian rupiah (or 32 cents to $1.29 USD).

PasarPolis is able to scale because it uses machine learning and data analytics to make the underwriting and claims process faster and more cost-effective. It claims 87% of non-credit insurance claims in 2022 were settled within 24 hours. PasarPolis’ tech includes algorithms that automate the claims approval process, based on data submitted by customers, like photos, chronology and date and time of events. The algorithm then filters information to PasarPolis’ faster “green” channel.”

The company’s most recent launches include its Unified Claims Interface (POLI), which lets customers file multiple claims through different channels like email , WhatsApp, SMS and PasarPolis’ mobile app.

Randing says PasarPolis’ goal is to reduce the cost of insurance and increase penetration in Indonesia, where insurance penetration rate was only 4% as of 2022.

“We think that inclusive insurance is a vital add-on to basic state social,” he said. “Particularly the health protection in line with the increasing concern of many to protect their families’ health, especially during the pandemic.”

PasarPolis is now one of Indonesia’s first full-stack insurtechs by Catherine Shu originally published on TechCrunch

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Hello from a very rain-drenched, the Cure-themed, semi-goth-and-sad Silicon Valley (Haje) and a lovely, sunny and warm day (Christine). It’s hard to imagine one from the other, and so here we are, learning a lesson of empathy and realizing that our immediate experience may not be universal. Whoa. Didn’t expect that level of depth from your friendly neighborhood tech newsletter, didya? May we continue to surprise you for the rest of 2023 as well. — Christine and Haje

The TechCrunch Top 3

ChatGPT, but in a suit and tie: Kyle writes that OpenAI has been looking for ways to monetize ChatGPT, its viral chatbot, and today we learned how it is going to do that. The company is now piloting a premium version called “ChatGPT Professional.” Benefits include no “unavailable” windows and an unlimited number of messages. How much would you pay for it? Join the waitlist and weigh in.
In the air again: The Federal Aviation Authority is probably breathing a sigh of relief after returning to normal operations earlier this morning. All U.S. domestic flights were grounded when one of its key systems went down, Darrell reports.
What did you say?: More companies are developing AI technology to help humans communicate, and DeepL, an AI-based language translator for businesses, is the latest to reap the benefits of investor hunger for companies like this. Ingrid reports that DeepL raised over $100 million to value the company at over $1 billion.

Startups and VC

Getting smart home devices to talk to each other has taken forever, but something changed. Why now? Or, more explicitly, why did the Matter rollout take so long? Brian questions. For starters, the obvious issue alluded to above is that most of these big companies would really rather not work with their competitors if they can avoid it. As such, getting everyone on the same page about something like this is a bit of a cat-herding scenario. We finally got there, however, and that’s why the Matter logo was everywhere at CES 2023.

Venom Foundation and investment manager Iceberg Capital have partnered to launch a $1 billion venture fund, Jacquelyn reports. The $1 billion vehicle is a blockchain-agnostic fund that will invest in web3 protocols and decentralized applications (dApps).

Okay, fine, you can have another fistful of highlights from the past 24 hours:

All that you seek: Kyle reports that Seek lands $7.5 million investment for AI tech that answers domain-specific questions.
Sailing un-Carta’d waters: Rocky weather at Carta: Connie reports that the company is suing its former CTO, and Natasha M reports that the company lays off 10% of its staff.
Hack the planet: Gamified cybersecurity training platform with 1.7 million users, Hack the Box raises $55 million, reports Ingrid.
Hell-benta on chatting alone: AI-powered chatbot provider Inbenta talked its way into a $40 million funding round, Kyle reports.
Skipping the line: If you want the Nothing phone in the U.S., sign up for the beta, Brian reports.

Some investors are (cautiously) implementing ChatGPT in their workflows

Can AI turn out polite pitch rejection letters, automate aspects of due diligence, or draft accurate market maps?

Some investors are already evaluating ways to fold ChatGPT “into their workflows to do their jobs better, smarter and maybe even cheaper,” report Natasha Mascarenhas, Christine Hall and Kyle Wiggers.

They interviewed several VCs to learn more about potential use cases, some early experiments and the tech’s limitations when it comes to nuance and tone.

“It’s not automating the important conversations we have with journalists,” said Brianne Kimmel, founder of Worklife Ventures, “but I think it’s sufficient for things that are pretty straightforward.”

Three more from the TC+ team:

What if the H-1B doesn’t happen?: Our friendly immigration lawyer Sophie Alcorn answers how to present a strong H-1B case, and what to do if you’re not selected.
AI see the future: Veteran enterprise VC Peter Wagner on the opportunities for AI startups, as reported by Connie.
Stretching our spans: Abby Miller Levy takes a stab at predicting the longevity industry in 2023.

TechCrunch+ is our membership program that helps founders and startup teams get ahead of the pack. You can sign up here. Use code “DC” for a 15% discount on an annual subscription!

Big Tech Inc.

It’s a Meta kind of day. First, what Meta giveth, Meta taketh away, as Amanda found out. First it was internships and now Meta is rescinding some full-time job offers. Meanwhile, a privacy rights group in Europe published a lengthy set of documents related to privacy decisions the EU made against Meta.Natasha L tells you what they said. And finally, Annie reports that Meta’s main content moderation partner in Africa shut down operations.

We all have a lot of apps on our phones, but Sarah reports that for the first time in a while, the app economy slowed, with consumer spending in this category down 2% to $167 billion. She goes into what happened and why.

Now here’s five more for you:

New layoffs: Both Carta and Cloud Software Group announced they will have fewer employees.
A new, fresher Microsoft: Microsoft has a less expensive version of its 365 product that comes with 100 GB of storage, Outlook and more for $1.99 per month, Kyle reports.
Do you know where you are headed?: Apple is taking on Google again, this time with a new web portal called Apple Business Connect that enables business owners to update and manage their information on Apple Maps. Sarah has more.
Tweets, but not by date/time: Twitter is making an algorithmic timeline the default on iOS. This means your timeline will be curated to what Twitter thinks you want to see rather than tweets appearing in chronological order, Ivan writes.
Blockchain!: Amazon Web Services partners with Avalanche to scale blockchain solutions for enterprises, institutions and governments to make it easier for individuals to launch and manage nodes on Avalanche, Jacquelyn reports.

Daily Crunch: In ‘an early experimental program,’ OpenAI opens waitlist for GPT Professional by Christine Hall originally published on TechCrunch

Launch startup ABL Space Systems’ first orbital launch attempt ended in failure Tuesday after all nine engines on the RS1 rocket’s first stage shut down simultaneously. The rocket subsequently hit the launch pad and was destroyed on impact.

The rocket took off from the Pacific Spaceport Complex on Alaska’s Kodiak Island at around 6:27 PM EST. It’s unclear how soon after lift-off the engines failed. The rocket was carrying a technology demonstration CubeSat for data analytics company OmniTeq. While the payload was lost, no personnel were injured by the rocket impact.

As is customary with anomalous rocket launches, the company is working with officials from the spaceport and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to investigate the cause of the engine shutdown.

ABL President Dan Piemont told TechCrunch that while the investigation is still in its early stages, “The simultaneity of the shutdown is a strong piece of evidence but it will take more time for the team to narrow down contributing factors and a root cause.”

ABL’s 88-foot-tall expendable rocket RS1 is capable of carrying up to 1,350 kilograms to low Earth orbit, similar to Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha vehicle. The company has previously said that each launch would cost around $12 million, putting it in a growing field of competitors looking to provide rapid launch services at low cost.

The failure on Tuesday comes just one day after a Virgin Orbit mission experienced its own anomaly, which ended the mission prematurely. Two other rockets also experienced failures in the past month: Arianespace’s Vega-C and Chinese company Landspace’s Zhuque-2, which would’ve been the first methane-fueled rocket to reach orbit.

ABL has raised $420 million since its founding in 2017, including a $200 million Series B extension round in December 2021 at a valuation of $2.4 billion. Its investors include Lockheed Martin, which purchased a block of up to 58 launches from the startup last April.

“The Flight 2 vehicle is fully assembled and ready to begin it’s flight campaign, so we’re champing at the bit to get going on that as soon as the Flight 1 investigation is complete,” Piemont said.

ABL Space Systems’ rocket experiences simultaneous engine shutdown shortly after lift-off by Aria Alamalhodaei originally published on TechCrunch