YC-backed Harper Raises $47M to Build AI Insurance Brokerage

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Published by Stephen Oluwadara at February 26, 2026

How Rice and Nair Rebounded from Their First Startup’s Loss

Harper is a fully autonomous, licensed commercial insurance agency that connects small- to mid-sized businesses with over 160 insurance carriers. It helps with workers’ compensation, general liability, and professional liability insurance. The San Francisco-based startup was founded in 2024 by second-time founders Dakotah Rice and Tushar Nair.

They both previously founded the investment company Poolit, which closed in 2023. In an interview with TechCrunch about the collapse of that company, Dakotah admitted they never figured out how to make it profitable.

So for his next company, Rice went back to a problem that was traumatic during his childhood. “I grew up in rural Alabama watching my dad run a nightclub, and my uncle lose his trucking company,” he said in a press release seen by UrbanGeekz. “What stuck with me wasn’t the glamour (there wasn’t any): it was watching my family navigate a system that never seemed to work for them.”

“Insurance always got in the way. The landlord needed a COI. The bank needed proof of coverage. Every time, it meant weeks of calls, paperwork nobody understood, and brokers who made you feel like you were bothering them. My uncle’s trucking fleet didn’t fail because he was a bad operator. The financing and insurance costs crushed him before he had a chance.”

So after shutting down their previous startup, Poolit, they initially thought about building AI tools for existing brokerages. However, they settled to use that technology to build an AI-native insurance brokerage and call it Harper, after Rice’s mother’s maiden name.

The AI-native Insurance Brokerage Named Harper

Harper is part of a trend YC recently wrote about (it took part in the YC W25 batch). The YC blog wrote that the future of agencies “will look more like software companies, with software margins.”

Harper’s AI handles the heavy lifting that used to require tons of analysts – reading applications, routing submissions, chasing underwriters, managing quotes, and answering questions round the clock. The models tackle the complex, unstructured work that’s a bottleneck for traditional insurance.

“What often takes a traditional broker five to seven days, we can often do in one to two,” Rice, the company’s CEO, said to TechCrunch. “AI handles the operational weight. Submission routing, underwriter follow-ups, document collection, pipeline management”.

A typical sales team at a human-led brokerage handles 20 to 30 deals a month, but AI enables Harper to handle more than 1,000 customers a month. In 13 months, they’ve served more than 5,000 businesses across America, including manufacturers, healthcare providers, hospitality groups, transportation fleets, construction firms, bars, and restaurants.

Harper’s founders see all insurance brokerages as competition, but they’re tackling a fragmented market where even big players rely on “email and spreadsheets”. With AI-native rivals like Gyde, FurtherAI, and Vantel on the scene, Harper’s unique angle is targeting everyday businesses – “the real-world businesses,” he said, “like daycares, manufacturers, car dealerships, local bars and restaurants.”

How The Fund Will Be Used

This round, facilitated by Emergence Capital, is the largest, publicly disclosed Series A ever raised by a Black founder in the United States. Other investors include Y Combinator, Peak XV, Antler, 10X Founders, Fellows Fund, and Outset Capital.

The money raised will be used to do these three things: Scale the team by hiring engineers, account managers, and operators who want to build something that matters.

Furthermore, they’ll expand the carrier relationships. Currently working with 165+ underwriters, they’ll go deeper by being more direct, with more appointments, more programs, and more capacity for complex commercial risks. In addition, they’ll also invest in the AI infrastructure that enables Fortune 500-level service to every business in America.

“We want Harper to become the voice for entrepreneurs, starting with their insurance, but over time becoming a focal point for all types of things related to risk, compliance, and their entire back office,” he said. “We want to make it simple for them to do their core work, and we basically do everything else over time.”

Main Image: Tushar Nair and Dakotah Rice, Harper’s Co-founders. Image Credit: Harper