Google buys minority stake in insurance agency software provider, Applied Systems

Insurance Agency Software - Google

The purchase was made through CapitalG, Alphabet’s growth equity investment fund.

Google has purchased a minority stake in a company called Applied Systems, which provides insurance agency software, cloud based software and other tech for independent agencies.

CapitalG was also the investment firm behind the funding for Airbnb, Lyft, SurveyMonkey and Zscaler.

CapitalG is the growth equity investment fund at Alphabet, Google’s parent company. As of the time of the writing of this article, neither CapitalG nor Applied Systems have disclosed any of the financial details of the deal. That said, what is known is that the deal closed about ten days before it was publicly announced.

Reid French, chief executive officer at Applied Systems, confirmed that Google, through CapitalG, will become a minority investor in the insurance agency software company. At the same time, French added that the financial stake Google/CapitalG holds in Applied Systems is a significant one.

The investment into the investment agency software provider is a notable one for the firm.

“It’s not small,” said Reid about the investment CapitalG made into Applied Systems. “They made a legitimate commitment…it’s real money.”

Majority ownership of Applied Systems is retained by funds managed by Hellman & Friedman, a private equity firm. CapitalG’s investment into the insurance technology business joins it with Stone Point Capital and JMI Equity as minor investors.

According to an Insurance Journal report, Applied Systems jumped on the opportunity to reassure independent insurance agents, its clients, that Google’s involvement in the company is a welcome opportunity and nothing to fear. French promised that Google would not be accessing any of the insurance data at Applied Systems stored within the cloud or any of its other customer applications.

“If you were going to be misinformed, you might say Google entered this partnership to get access to all the insurance data that exists in Applied’s cloud or customer applications. The short answer is none of them have any rights to our customer data,” said French.

Insurance Agency Software - GoogleThrough its investment into the insurance agency software firm Google is bringing Applied Systems its expertise in a number of areas of tech. These include machine learning, artificial intelligence and digital marketing, said the firm.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.