Nova Benefits of Naval Ravikant backed AngelList Early-Stage Quant Fund

Nova Benefits, an employee wellness platform centred on corporate health insurance, today became the first investment of AngelList Early-Stage Quant Fund in India. Investors shortlisted Nova Benefits based on data reflecting the company’s high hiring velocity. As part of this round, Nova Benefits received an undisclosed amount from AngelList Early-Stage Quant Fund. In September 2021, the company raised $10 million in its Series A funding round.

Nova Benefits enables corporate firms to avail customised health insurance plans for their employees and add additional health benefits around physical and mental health. Nova is making health insurance & benefits simple to use and personalised for each individual within a company.

The AngelList Quant Fund is a data-based algorithmic fund recently launched by the AngelList platform, which connects early stage startups to investors and potential talent. Quant Fund uses data collected from the platform to help investors in selecting early stage startups worthy of funding based on quantitative factors. The fund counts AngelList founder Naval Ravikant as a Limited Partner (LP).

The primary factors for startups to get chosen for funding on the AngelList platform is the volume of early-stage investment and hiring stats. Investors also look at indicators like the background of applicants and number of applicants when making this assessment.

It is interesting to note that Nova’s hiring volumes have consistently been on par with American company DoorDash (now a billion dollar company), when it was an early stage startup.

Speaking on AngelList Quant Fund’s first investment in India, Abraham Othman, PhD, who heads the Quant Fund's investment committee said: “The Quant Fund is thrilled to be an investor in Nova Benefits. We believe that exceptional outcomes require exceptional people, and the volume and quality of Nova's job applicants ranks among the very top of startups globally, not just in India.”

Speaking on receiving funds from the AngelList Quant Fund, Saransh Garg, CEO & Co-founder of Nova Benefits said, “Our mission at Nova is to build happier and healthier workplaces. We’re doing so by making health benefits easy to use and personalised. Our employee wellness platform is centred around corporate health insurance. We ensure we take care of people when they're hospitalized but also prevent them from falling sick in the first place. At Nova, our goal is to cover 10 million people in India by 2025.”

He further added, “This round of funding will help us expand our wellness offerings on the platform in terms of product management, engineering, sales and customer success teams. We believe the Quant Fund has added significant value to our company by providing us with a platform to connect with investors and a skilled talent pool, which will help expand our business in the coming years.”

Nova Benefits plans to use part of the funds to set up an Analytics Division to track hiring and employee wellness trends, leveraging data access provided by AngelList Quant Fund.

Sharing his thoughts, Yash Gupta, CTO & Co-founder, Nova Benefits said, “B2B insurance traditionally comes with a ton of manual work because of frequent changes in employee rosters. This also makes the onboarding experience for new employees sub-par. Furthermore, given the need of the hour on providing physical fitness and mental wellness programs by HR teams, managing multiple vendors becomes even more challenging. At Nova, we are building an employee wellness platform that is easy to use for HR teams and employees alike. Our tech infrastructure has been developed to address the challenges faced when purchasing policies, understanding policy terms, applying for claims, gamifying fitness activities, and accessing wellness benefits like mental health counseling. Our goal is to make teams healthier and more productive through our wellness platform in the long run.”

Nova Benefits hiring highlights:

-          Being present on Angelist, 40% of Nova’s early tech hires reached out via AngelList

-          Focus on eNPS (Employer Net Promoter Score) as a performance metric for the HR team internally. The company has a whopping employee net performance score of 75.

-          Tight recruiting process, offers are rolled out within 2 weeks, 3-day SLA between rounds

-          Significant hiring for tech roles

Since its launch, Nova Benefits has on-boarded more than 200+ companies, and 100,000+ members on its platform. Some of the companies that have insured with Nova include Snapdeal, Pharmeasy, Dream Sports, Yulu Bikes, Chumbak and Dealshare.