Updata Partners VIII's First Deal Goes to Embedded Insurance for Vertical SaaS

Updata Partners VIII has made its first investment, leading a growth financing in Vertical Insure, the Minneapolis-based embedded-insurance platform built for vertical software companies. Existing backers Rally Ventures and Dundee Venture Capital also participated. The companies did not disclose the amount, the valuation, or a formal round label, so any current total-funding figure for Vertical Insure would be guesswork. Updata announced the transaction on August 5, 2026, one day after Vertical Insure published its own financing news.

Vertical Insure supplies the layer that most vertical SaaS providers do not have in-house. Using a single multi-carrier API, it designs, prices, and administers purpose-built insurance products that software partners offer at the point of transaction; the policyholder experience runs through ViCoverage while Vertical Insure handles the carrier relationships, underwriting expertise, licensing, and regulatory infrastructure behind the integration. Platforms keep their customer relationship and avoid becoming an insurer themselves.

The company says its model now supports more than 100 software platforms across millions of transactions. Named partners in company and investor announcements include Blackbaud, LeagueApps, Togetherwork, SportsEngine, and Daxko, with served markets spanning sports, travel, events, education, construction, rentals, associations, and other specialized software categories.

On use of proceeds, Vertical Insure says the capital will accelerate go-to-market execution and expansion into new markets and verticals; Updata adds product and carrier-network growth to that agenda. Updata General Partner Jon Seeber will represent the firm on the company's board.

The strategic logic the deal rests on is a shift in how vertical software companies look for revenue beyond subscription seats and payments. Insurance has been a stubborn candidate for embedding because distribution is only the visible part of the machinery: coverage design, carrier coordination, pricing, administration, support, compliance, and claims all sit underneath. When those functions live outside the application, the customer gets another process to manage and the platform loses a chance to make its workflow more useful. Updata says the model can generate high-margin, net-new revenue for partners while giving end users a better-matched product — a claim that comes from the investor rather than an independent audit.

Vertical Insure's growth story is not new. It previously announced a $4M seed round co-led by Rally Ventures and Dundee Venture Capital in December 2022, followed by another $2M led by Greenlight Re Innovations in February 2023 — $6M in disclosed seed financing in total. Founder and CEO Brock Noland traced the company's origin to the awkward economics of buying an inexpensive pontoon policy, where the broker lost money because the commission did not justify the manual work. Co-founding CTO Greg Blasko helped turn that insight into an API-first platform. Updata says the company is growing more than 100% year over year while remaining capital efficient, with strong retention and unit economics; those performance claims are investor-reported rather than independently audited. The company has also widened its reach through partnerships and acquisitions, including its 2023 combination with Next Wave Insurance Services.