Sequoia Backs AI-Native Insurance Brokerage

Harper's founding team combines deep domain credibility with technical expertise; CEO Dakotah Rice comes from a family with a background in insurance and has experience at Goldman Sachs and Coatue, while CTO Tushar Nair, a repeat founder, previously led machine learning and AI engineering teams at Goldman Sachs. The founders' first startup, Poolit, shut down in 2023, teaching them hard lessons about profitability that shaped their decision to build Harper as a full-stack brokerage rather than just selling AI tools to existing agencies. The company’s agentic AI architecture is designed to automate complex, judgment-heavy back-office tasks that traditionally slow down commercial insurance. This involves AI agents that can autonomously manage entire workflows, from reading unstructured application documents and routing submissions to a network of over 160 carriers, to following up with underwriters and managing quotes. This model has been shown to reduce quote-to-bind times from weeks to just 24-48 hours. Such systems are typically built on a foundation of API-first design principles, often using RESTful APIs to connect with legacy policy administration systems, external data sources, and partner ecosystems. This modular, microservices-based approach allows for greater agility, enabling insurers to decouple core functions like claims processing and underwriting, and roll out new products without overhauling the entire system. A well-documented developer portal becomes a strategic asset, fostering an ecosystem by simplifying integration for partners and improving the overall developer experience. For a Principal-level engineer, influencing this architectural direction involves establishing technical standards and guiding teams through complex tradeoffs without direct management authority. The role requires balancing the build-out of scalable, cloud-native infrastructure with the immediate needs of the business, ensuring that the platform's design serves both internal operations teams and external API consumers effectively. This technical leadership is crucial for driving the long-term strategic roadmap beyond immediate project tasks. From a fundraising perspective, technical founders in the current fintech landscape must craft a compelling narrative that clearly defines the market gap and quantifies the opportunity. Investors are increasingly focused on sustainable business models with a clear path to profitability, requiring founders to know their metrics cold and demonstrate capital efficiency. Building relationships with investors and seeking strategic advice, not just capital, are key best practices. The development of these agentic systems heavily leverages the open-source ecosystem, with frameworks like LangChain, CrewAI, and AutoGen being used for LLM orchestration to link different models and tools into cohesive workflows. The transparency and flexibility of open-source tools like PyTorch and LlamaIndex are critical for insurers looking to avoid vendor lock-in and maintain control over their AI strategy and regulatory compliance.