HOVER Raises $60M Series D Led By Insurance Carriers

HOVER, a San Francisco-based startup that creates measured models of buildings, has raised $60 million in a new round led by a group of insurance carriers.

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Insurance carriers Travelers Insurance, State Farm Ventures, and Nationwide Insurance led the Series D, with participation from investors including Standard Industries, Menlo Ventures, GV, Alsop Louie Partners, and Guidewire Software.

As a digital data company, HOVER is aiming to modernize how property projects are carried out.

“The home improvement industry is one of the few industries that’s not able to sell products on the internet,” CEO A.J. Altman said in an interview with Crunchbase news. “You can buy shingles on the internet, but you can’t buy a roof.”

HOVER generates structured building data from computer vision and deep learning. HOVER’s app allows users to take exterior measurements of buildings and create a 3D model, which can then be used for quotes and estimates. Rather than having a contractor and a crew come manually measure and make estimates, HOVER captures the data and hosts it in the cloud as a “digital twin” of the building.

With the digital image, product information can be ingested and create an end-to-end way for contractors to go from “quote to cash,” according to Matt Murphy, managing director at Menlo Ventures.

“Just like DocuSign kind of revolutionized getting people to sign more quickly and reduced the sales cycle…similarly here HOVER’s collapsing this whole antiquated, disconnected process into one smooth workflow that allows you to go end-to-end in less than an hour,” Murphy said.

HOVER last raised a $25 million Series C led by Menlo Ventures in April 2019.

With the new funding, HOVER plans on growing its workforce, according to Altman. The company’s headcount is between 210 and 220 employees now, and it plans on doubling that in the next 12 to 18 months.

While the company reached a million dollar revenue year back in 2016, the 2020 current annual run rate is more than $70 million, according to Altman.

In terms of expansion, HOVER will focus on improving the experience for its contractor customers, Altman said. The company wants to make it easier to turn HOVER’s data into purchases. For its policyholder customers, HOVER is aiming to make the claim experience more enjoyable and transparent.

“In the long run we believe we can help that contractor segment sell directly to the American homeowner and sell projects directly in the HOVER app,” Altman said.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias.