In an effort to feature more insurtechs, Digital Insurance has modified the format of our Meet the insurtech series.
ZestyAI's co-founder and chief product officer, Kumar Dhuvur, shared the following responses, which have been lightly edited.
What's the origin story of the company?
ZestyAI didn't start in insurance. We began as PowerScout, a clean energy marketplace, helping homeowners transition to renewable energy. Things changed when political priorities shifted, and funding for renewable projects dried up. Faced with a tough decision, we turned to our greatest strength, data.
We had built a database covering 120 million rooftops across the U.S. and realized this property-level insight could serve industries beyond clean energy. After months of research and talking with experts, we discovered a glaring need in property and casualty insurance. Insurers were grappling with outdated tools that couldn't keep up with increasingly severe wildfires and other risks.
The 2017 California wildfires cemented our pivot. Traditional risk maps had failed insurers, but our AI models could accurately predict wildfire risk at the property level. Within eight months, we signed our first major customer and began earning industry recognition. We rebranded as ZestyAI to reflect our focus on fresh ideas and cutting-edge AI.
Since then, we've grown into a trusted partner for nearly half of the top 100 insurers. Backed by $50 million in funding, we're using AI to help insurers make smarter decisions, tackle climate-related challenges and better serve their customers.
When was the first product launched?
ZestyAI launched its first product, Z-FIRE, in 2019, and quickly gained traction among insurers grappling with the growing severity of climate-driven events. Wildfires were becoming more destructive, and insurers needed better tools to assess risk at the property level.
Z-FIRE was designed to provide precise, property-specific wildfire risk assessments. It quickly gained attention as the first AI-powered wildfire model approved by the California Department of Insurance as part of a carrier rate filing. This milestone was a big step toward modernizing insurance risk assessment.
Since then, we've expanded our product suite to cover severe convective storms (including hail and wind), non-weather water damage and more. These solutions provide granular insights into the top perils driving insurer losses, combining machine learning, high-resolution imagery, climate science and historical loss data.
Our products have always been about more than just technology, they're about trust and transparency. By collaborating closely with regulators and insurers, we ensure our models meet the highest standards of reliability. That foundation has allowed us to scale and earn the trust of some of the largest insurers in the country.
Can you tell me about the founders/founding team?
ZestyAI was co-founded by Attila Toth and Kumar Dhuvur, two leaders united by their passion for utilizing data and technology to tackle complex challenges.
Toth, ZestyAI's CEO, brings a wealth of experience in AI, data analytics and real estate. His career has spanned multiple industries, but a consistent theme has been his ability to apply cutting-edge technology to solve traditional problems. Before starting ZestyAI, Attila held leadership positions at C3.AI, where he played a pivotal role in driving global sales, and at SunEdison, where he gained deep insights into renewable energy and large-scale infrastructure. He began his career as a strategy advisor at McKinsey & Company, honing his analytical and leadership skills. Attila earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he developed the business acumen that would later fuel ZestyAI's success.
Dhuvur, ZestyAI's Head of Product, is an expert in risk management and analytics. Before co-founding ZestyAI, he led credit risk analytics teams at Capital One, where he was responsible for shaping strategies that enhanced financial decision-making. His time at McKinsey & Company further solidified his expertise, as he worked closely with financial institutions on improving their risk management frameworks. Kumar's educational background is as impressive as his career. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras, one of India's most prestigious institutions.
The founding duo recognized a significant gap in the insurance industry's ability to assess property risk with precision and saw a chance to modernize the field. By combining their technical expertise, industry knowledge and entrepreneurial vision, Tothand Dhuvurcreated ZestyAI.
Any meaning behind the company name?
The name ZestyAI captures the company's energetic and innovative spirit. Zesty symbolizes fresh ideas, dynamism and a bold approach to solving complex challenges in the traditionally conservative insurance industry. It reflects the company's mission to bring a modern, invigorating perspective to property risk assessment. The AI" in our name highlights our focus on artificial intelligence which is at the core of our products.
How many employees?
ZestyAI has a team of over 70 professionals, spanning roles in data science, engineering, product development and insurance expertise. The company prides itself on fostering a collaborative culture where every team member contributes to its mission of modernizing risk assessment.
Despite its relatively small size, the company has achieved an outsized impact by assembling a team with diverse backgrounds, blending the best of the tech world with deep insurance industry expertise. This unique combination of skills allows the company to tackle challenges from multiple perspectives, driving innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of insurers and regulators.
Where is the company based?
ZestyAI is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Being in the heart of Silicon Valley gives us access to some of the best minds in AI and technology, as well as a vibrant ecosystem of startups and investors.
That said, we're not limited by geography. ZestyAI embraces a remote-first culture, which means we've been able to bring together talented people from across the U.S. and beyond. This flexibility has helped us build a diverse team with a broad range of perspectives - something we see as a big advantage in tackling complex problems.
What pain points is the technology trying to solve?
The combined ratio for P&C carriers has been steadily rising in recent years, driven by increasing natural catastrophes and aging books of business. ZestyAI addresses these pain points by empowering carriers with AI-driven insights that enhance underwriting, pricing and portfolio management.
We address all major perils that collectively contribute to 85% of a carrier's loss ratio, including wildfire, severe convective storms and non-weather water. With nearly 100% hit rates and precise, property-specific data, our solutions provide carriers with accurate information about each parcel and structure. This enables carriers to:
- Improve underwriting accuracy: by utilizing our insights, carriers can underwrite with confidence, ensuring the right coverage is applied and loss cost controls are optimized.
- Align premiums with true risk: Our property-specific risk scores and granular data allow carriers to set premiums that accurately reflect the risk, improving alignment between pricing and exposure.
- Optimize portfolio performance: Carriers can analyze their existing book of business for changes in risk, identify opportunities for improvement, and take action to maintain a balanced, optimized portfolio.
Through partnerships with the California FAIR Plan and the newly launched Colorado FAIR Plan, ZestyAI has helped extend coverage to high-risk properties by providing property-specific risk insights. These insights assess every property's vulnerability to climate risks, help set risk-adjusted premiums and support homeowners in taking proactive steps to protect their properties from wildfire, hail and wind risks. By identifying actionable risk mitigation measures,such as removing overhanging vegetation or upgrading roofing materials, ZestyAI enables carriers to strengthen relationships with policyholders. This proactive approach fosters transparency, builds trust and boosts retention, while contributing to resilience at both the individual and community levels.
What funding rounds has the company had?
In December 2018, ZestyAI closed a $13 million Series A round, enabling the company to expand its data science and engineering teams and integrate proprietary datasets into its platform. In July 2022, the company secured $33 million in a Series B round led by Centana Growth Partners, alongside existing investors and Brex. This fueled record growth, expanded product offerings and accelerated go-to-market efforts.
What's ahead?
We remain laser-focused on our mission: to empower insurance carriers in their noble purpose of protecting policyholders and their most valuable assets.
This year, we're doubling down on innovation, bringing new products to market that address carriers' biggest challenges. We're enhancing our existing solutions with new features that deliver even greater value and insights. Scalability and speed remain top priorities as we work to make our products faster and more efficient, supporting an ever-expanding client base while maintaining the accuracy and reliability our partners depend on.
We're also continuing our proactive regulatory strategy, collaborating with regulators to review our models before carriers file them. This approach streamlines the approval process and enables faster deployment of our solutions, helping our customers bring innovation to market more quickly.
We're exploring the potential of generative AI and agentic AI to dynamically analyze data, automate complex workflows and execute tasks - enabling insurers to reduce manual effort and focus on strategic decisions. We're excited by the possibilities these innovations bring and are actively building for this future to help insurers operate smarter and more efficiently.
