Sparked by their frustration in the difficulties accessing insurance, sibling duo Walid and Karim Dib founded Hala in 2020, an Abu Dhabi-based insurtech start-up.
Having worked in the insurance field, Walid witnessed first-hand the lack of digitisation, transparency, and empathy in the industry. Through Hala, the co-founder and CEO, said: “We don’t want to make you love insurance, but to tolerate it.”
With growing interest from investors, the start-up last week raised $5 million, led by Entrée Capital, with participation from Mubadala Investment Company, EQ2 Ventures, Global Founders Capital, 500 Startups, and Hambro Perks Oryx Fund.
Starting point
Prior to delving into the risky world of entrepreneurship, Walid worked a stable job as an insurance loss adjuster.
“In July 2018, my brother and I decided to quit our jobs, to the dismay of our parents,” he explained.
The brothers then founded Addenda, a blockchain-based insurance platform, built to help reconcile payments between motor insurance companies in the UAE.
The platform was a quick success, helping reconcile AED30m ($8.17m) between insurance companies and shortening the reconciliation process to a matter of days, rather than months.
“The vanity KPIs we had of AED30m on the blockchain was beautiful, but we knew there was so much more we could do,” shared Walid.
Despite Addenda’s success, the brothers believed that they had much more to offer, and saw untapped potential in the markets for home insurance, travel insurance, and even pet insurance.
The founders: Karim Davis Dib, Harsh Ajmera, and Walid Daniel Dib.
“Last year, we had a moment of reflection and wondered, ‘are we just resolving the tail end of car insurance accident problems between insurance companies in the UAE?’ It’s a good problem to solve, but at a small scale in comparison to effectively competing with these insurance companies,” said Walid.
“Overnight, we switched off. We cancelled 12 contracts, if not more, which were transacting billions of dirhams between them, because I had this crazy idea for Hala.”
Their gamble paid off. In 2020, they decided to concentrate their efforts into building an insurtech platform that is B2C (business to consumer), consumer-centric, and would make insurance “lovable, affordable, and accessible”.
“I personally don’t look forward to buying a policy or filing a claim. So, with Hala, we want to help you buy a policy and file a claim digitally in three minutes only.
“We’re a team of people who are trying to make insurance lovable, or at least tolerable, by giving it the human touch,” the co-founder and CEO added.
Taking a risk
With its new capital infusion, Hala is eyeing expansion into new products, namely home insurance, which is set to take place later this month.
The start-up also has plans to grow the company further into the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
Hala is looking to target the millions uninsured in the UAE and across the MENA region.
Reflecting on Hala’s funding journey, Walid said: “The funding process itself was not easy because if you pivoted right before an equity financing round, a lot of doubts and questions will be raised by VCs.”
According to Walid, taking risks was never one of his worries, stating that: “When we announced our expansion into home insurance, where only 3 percent of the country has home insurance, we were met with a lot of concerns.”
For its expansion into home insurance, Hala is looking to target the millions uninsured in the UAE and across the MENA region who want to be covered against emergencies, protect their personal belongings and be insured against liabilities.
“We believe that there’s a huge market creation opportunity here and VC companies are in the realm of risk anyway,” said Walid.
Follow us on
