Jihan Abass is the founder of Lami Technologies and Griffins Insurance, Kenya’s first digital car insurance company. In February 2022, the firm received over Ksh440 million funding to expand its operations across Africa.
Here is the story of Jihan Abass as told by WoK.
Background
Jihan Abass holds a Finance Degree specializing in Investment and Financial Risk Management from Bayes Business School. She attended the prestigious university of Oxford where she graduated in 2019 with a Master of Business Administration (MBA). While at the institution she was the co-chair of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Oxford Business Network. She began her career journey in September 2015 as a commodity futures and sugar trader at Toyota Tsusho Sugar Trading Limited in London, United Kingdom. She served in the position for one year and two months before quitting to start her own company.
Establishing Griffin Motor Insurance
In October 2016, Jihan established Griffin Motor Insurance which was the first smart car insurance company in Kenya. The Griffin Motor App redefined car insurance in East Africa by offering a seamless experience that is simple, cheap and efficient. The company allows customers to pay in instalments and pause coverage if they travel abroad. It processes claims in a week as compared to the industry standard of 30 days.
Establishing Lami Insurance Technology
Following the success of Griffin Motor Insurance, Jihan sold the technology platform used to build Griffin app so that other businesses can use it to create their own digital insurance products. The Griffin Motor App was built using the Lami Insurance API hence the birth of Lami Insurance Technology in April 2018. The Lami insurance gateway is an insurance service platform that digitizes the entire insurance prices and allows users to create and distribute digital insurance products in record time.
“How it works is that we have insurance companies that plug into our platform. Right now, we have about 25 insurance companies. On the other side, we have businesses that can create products that these insurance companies underwrite. Businesses can then plug our API into any point of sale. It can be an app, website, PoS machine, or whatever distribution model works best. We have a portal for partners and for agents to manage insurance sales. In this portal, they can see how different products are performing,” she explained during a past interview with Lioness of Africa.
Success
In August 2022 Lami Technologies raised USD 3.7 million (approximately Ksh 448 million) in a seed extension round led by Harlem Capital, a New York based venture capital firm. Other companies which participated in the round include capital firm Newtown Partners and investors such as Jay Weintraub of Insure Tech Connect, Caribou Honig and Peter Bruce-Clark, a partner at Social Impact Capital. The USD3.7 million is an addition to last year’s USD1.8 million seed funding bringing its total fund to USD 5.5 million (Ksh666 million). According to Jihan, the capital fund will be used to expand the startup’s operations and infrastructure across Africa.
“Lami is pioneering innovation in the insurance sector, and we are glad to have secured the right partners to help drive insurance uptake across Africa. We are looking to make insurance easily accessible to everyone on the continent, and we will continually be unveiling more products that confirm this resolve,” she said.
Jihan has in the past received several recognitions and awards including being named as an African Innovator by Quartz in 2021 and representing Africa in the 2020 InsureTech Connect conference.
