Cara, an artificial intelligence platform focused on the insurance sector, has secured $8 million in seed funding to support brokerages in automating sales and servicing workflows.
The funding round was led by Kearny Jackson, with backing from a group of notable investors including Claire Hughes Johnson, former chief operating officer of Stripe; Kevin Mahaffey, founder of SNR; Sam Hodges, chief executive officer of Vouch Insurance; and Colin Evans from OpenAI’s startups and partnerships team.
Cara’s platform provides brokerages, agencies and wholesalers with AI-powered infrastructure aimed at streamlining operational processes, enabling teams to concentrate more on sales and client engagement. It integrates directly with agency management systems and customer relationship management platforms, ensuring seamless adoption within existing workflows.
According to the company, tasks that typically require around 90 minutes to complete manually can be executed in approximately two minutes using its AI-driven capabilities.
The business was founded by Vic Yeh, Nikhil Kansal and Jonathan Patel—former operators at Blend Labs, Stripe and Strategy&—who previously built and exited a digital insurance brokerage before commercialising their internal technology.
The company noted that more than 80% of its customer base has been acquired through word-of-mouth referrals, highlighting strong demand for solutions that enable agencies to scale more efficiently.
Cara’s platform is already in use by a number of brokerage organisations, including The McGowan Companies, Atlas Insurance Brokers, ISU Steadfast, Combined Agents of America and FirstChoice.
Looking ahead, the company is developing additional capabilities aimed at serving as an operational layer across brokerage technology stacks, with AI agents designed to manage administrative tasks that can account for up to 70% of an insurance agent’s daily workload.
