Cape Analytics raises $14 million to use computer vision for better insurance quotes

Cape Analytics has raised $14 million to use computer vision and machine learning to improve automated property underwriting for insurance companies.

Formation 8 led the round, with participation from XL Innovate, Data Collective, Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures, Promus Ventures, and Montage Ventures. The funding is one more application of machine learning and computer vision for business automation.

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Palo Alto, Calif.-based Cape Analytics starts with images of a home to help assess the home’s value and allow an insurance carrier to deliver more accurate and fast quotes.

The funding will allow Cape Analytics to expand its world-class engineering and sales teams as it brings its proprietary data to more regions and customers around the United States. As part of this financing, Formation 8’s Shirish Sathaye has joined the company’s board of directors.

Insurers want to provide quick, accurate, and hassle-free quotes to customers but, traditionally, quotes have been based on incomplete or unreliable information from public records, or on slow and expensive in-person reports from property inspectors.

In response, Cape Analytics has developed a cloud-based platform that provides near inspection-quality data on high-value property features – instantaneously and at scale – for entire property portfolios. The company pulls down geo-imagery from partners (outdoor, satellite photos), brings the imagery onto its internal platform (which is sort of like Google Earth), and then runs the images through its proprietary computer vision and AI deep learning algorithms that “understand” the image and extract structured data. That data can be anything related to property condition or attributes: square footage of a home’s footprint; roof condition, type, and material; skylights; solar panels; and other details. This is all info that helps insurers provide a more accurate quote for your home.

Cape Analytics’ CEO and cofounder, Ryan Kottenstette, was previously an investor with Khosla Ventures. Kottenstette has incubated several technology companies that apply computer vision and artificial intelligence to industries ranging from shipping logistics to agriculture to healthcare. Chief technology officer and cofounder, Suat Gedikli, is an expert in image processing, 3D processing, probabilistic state estimation, and machine learning.

“We are honored to partner with such distinguished investors to grow our engineering and sales teams as we add features and scale our platform to offer nationwide coverage,” said Kottenstette, in a statement.

Cape Analytics was founded in 2014 and has 20 employees.