Insurance tech, data room software, and coffee-shop startup Corgi is reportedly raising yet another round that closely follows its last raise and would double its valuation, sources have told Forbes.
The round is said to be a second extension of its Series B round and has already closed. Corgi announced its last round, the B1 round of $106 million at a $2.6 billion valuation at the end of May, about eight weeks ago.
In the AI-funding frenzy, many startups are raising back-to-back rounds at ever-increasing valuations — but even by those standards, Corgi stands out.
The Y Combinator alum (summer 2024) raised a $108 million Series A in January at an undisclosed valuation. (PitchBook estimates $630 million post-money.) Four months later, in early May, it raised its Series B: $160 million at a $1.3 billion valuation. Just three weeks later, it announced a B1 round from the same investors, saying they’d invested $106 million at a $2.6 billion valuation.
Now, eight weeks later, sources tell Forbes there’s a B2. Forbes did not report the amount of money that Corgi raised, though, and the company declined to comment on the potential funding.
Corgi is backed by TCV and Kindred Ventures. Kindred’s Kanyi Maqubela cited the startup’s momentum to TechCrunch as justification for the last valuation leap. The apparent justification for the new valuation is the startup’s revenue trajectory.
When Corgi announced its Series A seven months ago, the founders said their company had already hit $40 million in annualized revenue run rate. Sources told Forbes it’s now on track to increase run rate to $450 million by the end of the year.
Corgi offers AI-powered insurance. It uses AI to give prospects fast quotes and to speed payments on claims. It offers startups various types of liability insurance like general liability, coverage of tech-related incidents, and employment liability, as well as business renters’ and auto insurance.
Insurance is an inherently cash-intensive business but perhaps even more so for Corgi because it uses a type of insurance structure known as a Risk Retention Group (RRG). This is a way for people in the same industry, or those facing similar liabilities, to pool their resources and self-insure collectively.
According to Corgi’s website, RRGs aren’t subject to all the same state regulations as traditional, rated, underwritten insurance carriers. Corgi has adopted some different structures for different types of insurance, however, a spokesperson says. In addition to RRGs, some policies might use state-regulated carriers, for instance.
However, in an RRG insurance business, claims are paid out of the pool, and a steep claim can impact how much is left in the kitty to pay other claims. RRGs aren’t backed by state guaranty funds, so if the pool can’t pay, members bear the loss. If the claims are big enough, they can even bankrupt the RRG.
Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that Corgi wants to grow its coffers.
But even as the startup has expanded the types of insurance it offers, it has also branched out in other ways. Corgi now offers data room software, having weathered a recent uproar over how that software was vibe coded.
Plus, the startup operates two 24-hour coffee shops with cute and sometimes ad-sponsored drink names like “Brexspresso.” Its shops are located in San Francisco and Atlanta, but it says it’s planning to launch five more soon, including several in New York and one in London. Opening up physical cafe locations also requires cash.
Meanwhile, Corgi has a reputation in Silicon Valley for having a demanding corporate culture after founder-CEO Nico Laqua said he expects his employees to work seven days a week.
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