Headquarters address: 5 Crosby Street New York, NY 10013, USA
Year established: 2015
Number of employees: 1,100+
Global locations: France, Germany, the Netherlands, USA
Gross written premium: $375.7 million (2021)
Total assets: $1.5 billion (2021)
Underwriting expertise: Home, car, pet, and life insurance
Key people: Daniel Schreiber (CEO & chairman), Shai Wininger (co-CEO), Tim Bixby (chief financial officer), Adina Eckstein (chief operating officer), John Peters (chief insurance officer), Jorge Espinel (chief business development officer)
About Lemonade
Insurtech firm Lemonade uses artificial intelligence and behavioural economics to offer homeowners, renters, condo, car, pet health, and term life insurance policies to clients across the US. It also provides contents and liability coverage for customers in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, with plans to expand across Europe.
Lemonade’s policies are 100% digital. It provides quotes, underwrites and sells policies, and handles and pays claims via an online app. The company also charges a flat fee and pays claims “super-fast.” The insurtech firm once famously granted a claim in three seconds by leveraging chatbots for policy queries and claims and fraud detection.
Lemonade reached the landmark of one million customers, ending 2021 with more than 1.2 clients worldwide. It also recently crossed the unicorn line, with a market valuation of $1.29 billion, according to 2022 data from the Centre for Finance, Technology and Entrepreneurship (CFTE).
Brief history
In April 2015, Lemonade was founded by Tel Aviv-based tech experts Daniel Schreiber and Shai Wininger, who met through a mutual friend the previous year. With neither of them having insurance industry experience, they recruited industry veteran Ty Saglow to help them establish the insurtech firm.
Following its official launch, the company takes off with unprecedented success, signing up more than 14,000 customers within its first six months of operation. In its first funding round in December 2015, Lemonade raised $13 million through investors Sequoia Capital and Israeli VC Aleph. This was followed by another $13 million in funding from XL Innovate in August 2016 and $34 million in a Series B funding round in December of the same year.
Lemonade raised $180 million in four rounds through 2017. In 2019, the company raised $300 million in investments, led by SoftBank, Thrive Capital, Allianz, General Catalyst, and OurCrowd.
On June 8, 2020, Lemonade filed an S-1 form for registration of securities in preparation for an initial public offering. It became a public company in July 2020.
Leadership at Lemonade
Daniel Schreiber – CEO & chairman
Schreiber has been Lemonade’s CEO and chairman of the board of directors since he co-founded the insurtech firm in 2015. Prior to establishing Lemonade, he served as president and a member of the board of directors of wireless solutions provider Powermat Technologies from 2011 to 2015.
Schreiber has also held several leadership roles for a range of tech companies, including as senior vice-president of marketing and vice-president of marketing and business development at SanDisk and M-Systems, which was acquired by SanDisk in 2006, respectively.
In 1997, Schreiber co-founded and acted as CEO of Alchemedia Inc., an internet security software company acquired by Finjan Software in 2002. Before that, he practiced corporate commercial law at Herzog, Fox & Neeman, and was a member of the Israeli Bar Association. Schreiber holds a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honors from King’s College London.
Shai Wininger – CEO
Wininger co-founded Lemonade and has served various senior leadership roles within the company, including as president, secretary, treasurer, chief operating officer, chief technology officer, and member of the board of directors.
Before the firm’s establishment, Wininger founded Fiverr Ltd. in 2009 and as the chief technology officer, managed the engineering, design, and product departments. He also served in senior management capacities for several tech companies, including Mobideo Aerospace, Handsmart Software, and Trimus Inc. Wininger also served as a resident faculty member of Computer Graphics at The Neri Bloomfield Academy of Design and Education from 2002 to 2007 in Haifa, Israel.
Culture
Lemonade is a public benefit corporation and a Certified B Corporation. It operates an annual giveback program, where it donates unused premiums to non-profits selected by its community.
Since 2017, the company has given back almost $4.3 million to various charitable institutions across the US. In 2021 alone, Lemonade has donated more than $2.3 million to 65 non-profit organizations, including American Forests, Malala Fund, Charity: water, and CURE Childhood Cancer.
