ProtectU, the Uruguayan startup founded by Juan Manuel Ramos and Guillermo Fernández, raised US$100,000 from an angel investor to continue developing its insurance management platform based on artificial intelligence. The company seeks to solve an everyday problem: most people understand what their insurance covers when they take it out, but lose clarity about their coverage over time.
As Juan Ramos, founder of the startup, explained to InfoNegocios Uruguay, “people take out insurance, they understand it for the first two weeks and then they forget. Not because they are careless, but because we all have our minds on something else.”
An AI-powered insurance wallet
The ProtectU platform works as a digital policy wallet, where users can centralize all their insurance, whether or not contracted through the company, and consult them in simple language. The heart of the experience is Amparo, the AI assistant that translates policy jargon, automatically identifies documents and answers specific coverage questions, such as whether a specific claim is covered.
The idea arose when Ramos returned to Uruguay after working at Delivery Hero, the parent company of PedidosYa, in Berlin. There he identified the business opportunity and, upon returning, he partnered with Guillermo Fernández, whom he had known since TechCrunch Disrupt 2017 in San Francisco and who had just developed technological products through his software factory, Cavepot.
Strategic alliances with insurers
Until now, ProtectU had been financed with its own resources. According to InfoNegocios Uruguay, the funds from this new round will be allocated to development, marketing and scalability. The company has already closed alliances with Sancor Seguros, SBI Seguros and Universal Assistance, agreements that, according to Ramos, are not limited to the marketing of products but also seek to innovate together.
“The Uruguayan insurtech ecosystem is in a very dynamic moment. More players are going to appear and that will end up generating a better experience for the end user, more trust and greater real use of insurance,” Ramos concluded.
