AI platform Cara has raised $8m in seed funding to help insurance brokerages automate sales and servicing workflows.
The round was led by Kearny Jackson, with participation from Claire Hughes Johnson, former Chief Operating Officer of Stripe; Kevin Mahaffey, founder of SNR; Sam Hodges, CEO of Vouch Insurance; and Colin Evans from OpenAI’s startups and partnerships team.
Cara provides brokerages, agencies and wholesalers with AI infrastructure designed to automate operational processes and allow teams to focus on sales and client relationships. The platform integrates directly with agency management systems and customer relationship management tools.
The company said its technology can automate tasks such as coverage comparisons, proposal generation, certificates of insurance (COI), ACORD and supplemental form completion, errors and omissions reviews and customer service requests via voice and email AI.
According to Cara, processes that traditionally take around 90 minutes manually can be completed in roughly two minutes using its AI-driven workflows.
The company was founded by Vic Yeh, Nikhil Kansal and Jonathan Patel, former operators from Blend Labs, Stripe and Strategy&, who previously built and sold a digital insurance brokerage before turning their internal technology into a commercial platform.
Vic Yeh, Co-Founder and CEO of Cara, said, “We built Cara because we lived this problem. As part of a trillion-dollar global insurance industry, agencies and brokerages are drowning in operational work when they should be out writing new business and building client relationships.”
He added that more than 80% of Cara’s customers have come through word-of-mouth referrals, reflecting demand for tools that help agencies scale more efficiently.
The platform is already used by several brokerage organisations, including The McGowan Companies, Atlas Insurance Brokers, ISU Steadfast, Combined Agents of America and FirstChoice.
Sriram Krishnan, Co-Founder and General Partner at Kearny Jackson, said, “The $100bn insurance software market is primed for AI disruption. It’s workflow heavy, data rich, and still largely manual, making it a perfect fit for AI and automation.”
Sunil Chhaya, Co-Founder and General Partner at Kearny Jackson, added, “Having built and scaled a brokerage with these tools, they’re now turning that playbook into a platform for the entire industry.”
The company said the funding will support AI research, product development, deeper integrations with agency management and CRM platforms and team expansion.
Cara is also developing new capabilities designed to act as an operational layer across brokerage technology stacks, with AI agents handling administrative tasks that can account for up to 70% of an insurance agent’s daily workload.
