A B.C. tech firm cracking down on insurance fraud has just hatched some big-time capital of its own.
Owl Labs Inc. (Owl.co) revealed Wednesday it’s raised US$30 million as part of a Series B funding round that will see its 70-person roster expand by another 20% by year’s end.
Last year the software firm scooped up $4.4 million from the Vancouver-based Digital Technology Supercluster initiative as part of a joint project aimed at identifying potentially fraudulent disability claims made during the pandemic.
“The automated review process looks for supporting or suspicious evidence, then uses that to provide agents with a prioritized list of highly suspicious claims and only the related evidence for further review. This is expected to boost the fraud detection rate by a factor of four and eliminate the human biases that typically cloud the manual process,” the supercluster said when the project was announced last year.
“In the future, the platform will be adapted to help detect fraud for other types of insurance, including workers compensation and health.”
Owl.co’s platform does not use data such as age, gender, neighbourhood stats or race — part of an effort to eliminate biases when determining eligibility for claims.
The company’s software is currently used to review disability and workers’ compensation claims.
The supercluster was backed by a $153-million funding commitment from the federal government in fall 2018 with the aim of stoking business collaborations between a broad range of private and public organizations over five years. Members include Vancouver-based companies like Telus Corp. (TSX:T) as well as global giants like Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT) and Boeing Co. (NYSE:BA).
The Royal Bank of Canada (TSX:RY) and Deloitte are among the partners in the specific supercluster project Owl.co is leading.
The Series B funding round was led by Cota Capital with participation from Sorenson Ventures, Fuse Capital, Impression Ventures Luge Capital, and Plug and Play Ventures. The company’s overall funding now sits at US$40 million.
Owl.co also has offices in Toronto, New York and Seattle.
