Lemonade, Inc., is an American insurance company. The company offers renters' insurance, homeowners' insurance, car insurance, pet insurance, and term life insurance in the United States , as well as contents and liability policies in Germany and the Netherlands and renters' insurance in France . The company is based in New York City and has approximately 1.9 million customers.[3] Lemonade does not hire human employees to process claims for customers, instead using artificial intelligence and chatbots to process claims.[4][5][6]
Since its IPO, the share price (as of November 2023) has fallen by more than 75%.
Lemonade was founded by Daniel Schreiber (former president of Powermat Technologies) and Shai Wininger (co-founder of Fiverr) in April 2015.[7][8] Schreiber and Wininger were tech entrepreneurs with no insurance background.[4]
In December 2015, the company secured $13 million in seed money from Sequoia Capital and Aleph.[7][9]
In August 2016, the company raised $13 million in funding from XL Innovate (part of XL Group), followed by a $34 million Series B funding round in December 2016.[10] The Series B round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Thrive Capital, Tusk Ventures, and GV (formerly Google Ventures).[11][12]
In May 2016, Lemonade became one of the few insurance companies to receive B-Corporation certification.[13]
In April 2017, the company announced additional investors: Allianz and Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures. In December 2017, Softbank invested an additional $120 million in the company in a Series C round, increasing the total money raised by the company to around $180 million.[14]
In April 2019, Lemonade announced a further $300 million investment in a Series D financing led by SoftBank Group, with participation from Allianz, General Catalyst, GV, OurCrowd, and Thrive Capital, increasing the total money raised by the company to $480 million.[15][16]
In April 2020, the company launched in the Netherlands.[17]
In December 2020, it began offering insurance in France .[19][20] It also won a trademark dispute with T-Mobile over the use of the color pink.[21]
In November 2021, the company announced that it would fully acquire Metromile, Inc.[22] The acquisition completed on July 29, 2022, following which Lemonade laid off 20% of Metromile's staff.[23] Metromile has experienced a noticeable premium decline ever since Lemonade completed the acquisition in July 2022. The company ended the first six months of 2023 with $49 million in written premiums, a 15% decrease compared to the same period in 2022. In terms of dollars, the most significant decrease occurred in California, which accounts for over 50% of Metromile’s business. The company saw premiums decline in every state it operates in.