Shepherd Raises $13.5 Million Series A

<p><strong>SAN FRANCISCO <&sol;strong>&&num;8212&semi; Shepherd&comma; an insurance tech platform for commercial construction&comma; has raised a &dollar;13&period;5 million Series A funding round led by Costanoa Ventures with participation from Intact Ventures&comma; Era Ventures&comma; Greenlight Re and Spark Capital&period; Shepherd combines insurance together with software to help contractors save on premiums&period; The company will utilize the funds to expand its underwriting and software team&comma; accelerate product development and scale its software offerings&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;There is an urgent need for innovation in the commercial construction insurance industry&comma;” said Justin Levine&comma; CEO of Shepherd&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Our mission at Shepherd is ambitious but simple&colon; to create the first comprehensive platform that combines top-tier insurance offerings with world-class software to help commercial businesses manage risk and prevent losses&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Shepherd combines insurance capacity with fast underwriting&comma; risk management software and a construction software marketplace to streamline tedious processes and workflows&period; Its technology-enabled underwriting process has an average response time of 12 hours&comma; which is weeks faster than the rest of the industry&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Over recent years&comma; exploding claim severity&comma; archaic underwriting processes and underutilization of technology in the commercial construction industry have threatened to make insurance even more expensive and less sustainable&period; Between 2010 and 2020&comma; the median personal injury award increased nearly four times&comma; causing carriers to reduce their project underwriting by 40&percnt; or more&period; Without radical innovation&comma; the &dollar;10 trillion commercial construction industry will eventually become uninsurable&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>In response to these macro trends&comma; Shepherd is also rolling out a new software solution&comma; Shepherd Compliance&comma; to streamline and automate vendor compliance reviews&colon; a tedious and error-prone process that is vital for large businesses that need to validate coverage from their downstream vendors on every project&period; Shepherd Compliance uses artificial intelligence to review PDF-based data and automate the management of all related workflows&period; The software is optimized for Shepherd policyholders and also integrates with project management platforms&comma; like Procore&comma; ensuring ease of use across existing systems&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Commercial construction is a central and vital driver to the overall economy&comma; yet has been overlooked by technology providers for years&comma;” said Mark Selcow&comma; general partner at Costanoa Ventures&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;High insurance costs and even unavailability of coverage plagues a sector already struggling with tight margins and business risk&period; The team behind Shepherd is taking a technology-forward approach&comma; developing innovative insurance products that use modern software and data techniques to create a vastly superior insurance offering&period; Shepherd delivers better priced&comma; better fit policies for clients&comma; thanks to its data and tech advantages&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Since its launch in 2021&comma; the top retail insurance brokers nationwide operating in construction rely on Shepherd for innovative underwriting and its 24-hour submission-to-indication turnaround&period; In under 18 months&comma; the company achieved five-fold growth in Gross Written Premiums year-over-year and expanded from a single product offering &lpar;Excess Liability&rpar; to four&comma; encompassing all three primary casualty lines &lpar;General Liability&comma; Commercial Auto and Workers’ Compensation&rpar;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;