Max Life Insurance announced the selection of four startups to engage with under the second edition of its flagship InsurTech accelerator program – ‘Max Life Innovation Labs 2.0’. Through a virtual ‘Pitch Day’, organized on March 10 and 12, these four startups were selected from over 210 applicants. These shortlisted startups interacted with Max Life over the last two months to build innovative tech-based solutions to use cases in the life insurance space and capitalize on emerging technologies to invent and reinvent products, services, and business models.
The program was held in partnership with Invest India – the national investment promotion & facilitation agency of India, that hosted the program on the ‘Startup India Hub’. The four selected start-ups will partner with Max Life to co-develop solutions in the areas of non-invasive medical tests, digital twin, intelligent data acquisition, and health and wellness through targeted programs.
Commenting on the program, Manu Lavanya, Director & Chief Operations Officer, Max Life said, “It has been inspiring to witness the response Max Life Innovation Labs has received in its second edition. Amidst a year of propelled focus on digitation, Max Life Insurance has accelerated its journey towards building end-to-end digital solutions. Through our partnership with the selected start-ups, we recognize an opportunity to leverage their niche capabilities and unlock digital disruption of business processes in making Max Life a digital-first insurance company. Max Life believes in the power of leveraging the digital ecosystem to drive nonlinear transformation, and we would like to thank Startup India Hub and Amazon Web Services for hosting the program, and sharing their sectoral expertise for the benefit of the entire life insurance ecosystem.”
Deepak Bagla, MD & CEO, Invest India said, “Insurtech startups are initiating a new-age digital transformation in the sector. With access to dedicated resources and industry mentorship, they have an opportunity to bring their ideas to life and develop unique solutions. Max Life Insurance’s accelerator program- Innovation Labs- has helped strengthen the entrepreneurship ecosystem significantly”.
As part of the shortlisting process, the start-ups underwent stringent application reviews, followed by demo calls with business teams and mentorship through boot-camps with business heads. The thirteen start-ups shortlisted for the virtual ‘Pitch Day’ presented their use cases and innovation solutions under areas including blockchain networks in life insurance, smart customer profiling, intelligent data acquisition, AR and VR solutions to an eminent jury panel.
The panel included Mr. Prashant Tripathy, CEO & Managing Director; Mr. V. Viswanand, Deputy Managing Director; Mr. Amrit Singh, Chief Financial Officer& EVP-Strategy, Mr. Manu Lavanya, Chief Operating Officer; Mr. Aalok Bhan, Director & Chief Marketing Officer; Mr. Suhail Ghai, Executive Vice President & Head – Information Technology, Mr. Sachin Saxena, EVP and Chief Risk Officer from Max Life. As external jury members Mr. Girish Shivani, Executive Director and Fund Manager, YourNest VC; Mr. Shwetank Verma, Co-Founder, Leo Capital, and Mr. Amitabh Nagpal, Head of Start-Up Ecosystem, AWS, adjudged the start-ups and made their recommendations bringing sectoral expertise to the entire selection process.
In the next phase of the program, the selected start-ups will engage with Max Life to complete a 90-day long proof of concepts on the selected use cases. At the end of the period, successful concepts will be converted into commercial deployments for Max Life. The start-ups will also have access to relevant details and cutting-edge technology infra to test their products/solutions for the quickly advancing life insurance industry. They will have continued access to mentorship from program partners including Start-up India, AWS, and other venture capitalists for early-stage investments.
In the previous edition, Max Life Innovation Labs received a strong response with over 150 applications, out of which 7 dynamic start-ups were selected to work on specific problem statements. Three of the selected partners are currently working in close collaboration with Max Life business teams to scale up these insurtech solutions.
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