Why Relentless Customer Focus and Speed Trump Everything Else (w/Andrew Wynn, Co-Founder Ascend and Sheltr (acquired by Hippo))

Andrew Wynn, Co-Founder Ascend, the first modern insurance payments platform that provides automated all-in-one financing, collections, and payables. Ascend is funded by heavyweight investors FirstRound, FirstMark, Susa Ventures, South Park Commons and Box Group.

Andrew and co-founder Praveen Chekuri previously built Sheltr. The company became the first acquisition made by insurtech unicorn Hippo because of its intuitive and technological approach to building an insurance product that went beyond the customer interaction. Prior to Sheltr, both Andrew and Praveen were employees at Instacart, leading the company’s product and data integration team. Prior to that the two founders were at Instacart.

Andrew and Praveen see insurance payments as a specific-enough problem yet general enough that it applies to a wide group, so they went about to solve it for everyone in the industry. Their product brings premiums management, commissions, reconciliations, online payment and premium finance a streamlined, all-in-one experience.

Of high interest is how Ascend's teams are formed as being end-to-end across the whole customer journey for one vertical segment, whether insurtechs, producers, agents or carriers.

As an outsider to the industry, Andrew sees more insurtechs coming from people in insurance in the future. He seeks experts from this "highly networked industry" to provide input, advice and counsel to help balance out the traditional venture focus on speed.

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More About Ascend

Ascend is the modern insurance payments platform that provides automated all-in-one financing, collections, and payables. Ascend was built on the premise that, as the insurance industry moves from offline to online, insurance distributors will need to provide a modern seamless customer experience with a payment infrastructure in order to keep pace with the increasing demand for high-quality customer experiences. Founded by two-time insurtech entrepreneurs Andrew Wynn and Praveen Chekuri, Ascend helps distributors sell more by eliminating labor-intensive, expensive processes while providing customers with the great online checkout and financing experience they've come to expect. To learn more, please visit LinkedIn, Twitter or check out https://useascend.com/.