Singapore, 31 March 2022: Leading regional insurtech firm, Igloo, today announced the appointment of Wilson Tseng as its new Chief Business Officer. Reporting to Raunak Mehta, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Tseng will be responsible for driving Igloo’s commercial strategy, expanding partnerships with business and insurer partners, as well as identifying and developing new growth opportunities and revenue streams.
Tseng will work closely with Igloo’s commercial teams across Malaysia, Vietnam, The Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia to enhance business value from existing partnerships. Leveraging market trends and industry developments, he will work closely with product, engineering, and insurance teams to facilitate new initiatives, products, and services across all markets and product lines.
With previous senior roles at Grab and Alibaba, Tseng brings valuable commercial strategy, partnerships expansion, and tech experience to support Igloo’s ambitions. He played a crucial role in growing Grab’s commercial team in the SEA region, working with multiple partners across Grab’s marketplaces, payments, and ads businesses. Tseng has over 15 years of experience across various industries and has held several leadership positions in Europe and Asia.
Raunak Mehta said the addition of Tseng to Igloo’s leadership team, coupled with the funds raised during its Series B, is timely as the company prepares to further strengthen its position in Southeast Asia while also building an engineering centre and hiring talents in India. This adds to its 70-strong tech hub in Chengdu, China.
“Wilson brings a wealth of commercial partnerships expertise from a diverse career spanning start-ups, financial services, and e-commerce. This strategic appointment will help us maximise value creation for our partners as we scale and build rigour and efficiency into our commercial operations,” said Mehta.
Igloo’s new CBO, Wilson Tseng, said, “It’s an exciting time to join Igloo as it continues its ambitious growth. What attracted me to the role is the team’s drive to always do better, both for its partners and its end customers. Igloo wants to capitalise on the underinsured SEA market by closely working with key partners by using technology to bring the benefits of insurance protection in the most accessible, relevant and easy to adopt way to our consumers. I look forward to leveraging my experience to further grow Igloo’s journey and can’t wait to launch new innovative initiatives alongside a fantastic team and partners.”
In 2021, Igloo secured over 30 partnerships in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The company’s gross written premium tripled during this period and is on track to achieve its goal of facilitating 5% of general insurance premiums in the region over the next five years. As of 2021, Igloo’s insurance solutions helped underwrite over 75 million policies in Southeast Asia.
Earlier this month, Igloo announced the appointment of Raunak Mehta as its new Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Igloo also raised US$19 million in Series B funding led by Cathay Innovation, a global venture capital firm, with participation from ACA and other existing investors including Openspace. This brings Igloo’s total fundraising to over US$36 million.
Igloo is well-positioned to capture the immense opportunity provided by Southeast Asia’s burgeoning digital economy, which is expected to hit US$360 billion in 2025, according to Bain, Google and Temasek’s e-Conomy report. The growth of the region’s digital economy has also catalysed a need for digital insurance products such as cybersecurity and e-wallet insurance, which has opened up a US$10 billion opportunity for digital players and insurance companies in the region.
About Igloo
Igloo is the first full-stack insurtech firm to emerge from Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, The Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia and tech centres are located in China. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, and optimise and enhance existing products and services. Igloo has partnered with over 50 well-known brand names across the markets in various verticals, including insurance, telecommunications, e-commerce, hospitality, health tech and financial services.