HDVI was started two years ago by Chuck Wallace, a cofounder of online auto insurer Esurance, and Reid Spitz, a former venture capitalist. The company has 25 employees, split between Chicago and San Francisco. The engineering team is based in Chicago, said Spitz.
HDVI started selling insurance a couple months ago in Alabama and Tennessee. It plans to expand to Illinois and other states soon. “The commercial auto market hasn’t seen any real innovation in decades,” Spitz said.
At the same time, the cost of insurance is soaring for trucking companies. HDVI says a dramatic increase in sensors, as well as software that can analyze all the data they generate, will allow the company to better customize prices based on a customer’s actual risk profile and reward it for safer driving. The company also will provide analytics tools to customers to help them with compliance. It’s starting with small- and mid-sized carriers.
The insurance industry has seen a surge in startups that see an opportunity to use data, as well as internet and mobile technologies to create cost advantages that will allow them to poach customers from traditional operators. Among them are Chicago-based startups Clearcover in consumer auto, as well as Kin, in home coverage.
Chicago also is a major hub for the trucking industry that has spawned logistics-tech companies, including Coyote Logistics, Echo Global Logistics, Four Kites and Project44. 8VC invested in Project44.
“We could go anywhere we want,” says Wallace, who co-founded Esurance but left before it was acquired by Allstate in 2011. “Chicago is a center of innovation within fintech. It’s got great engineering talent and a good cost of living.”
