We're Announcing $47M to Build the Insurance Company Every Business Deserves

I grew up in rural Alabama watching my dad run a nightclub and my uncle lose his trucking company. I spent afternoons cleaning ashtrays and helping with inventory, seeing firsthand what it takes to keep a small business alive. 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.

That memory never left me.

After Goldman, Carlyle, and four years at Coatue, I could have kept picking stocks. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the most important infrastructure in America—the stuff that protects the businesses that actually employ people—was still running on fax machines and good intentions.

So Tushar and I started Harper. Today, we're announcing $47 million in combined Seed and Series A funding, led by Emergence Capital, with participation from Y Combinator, Peak XV, Antler, 10X Founders, Fellows Fund, and Outset Capital.

This includes the largest, publicly disclosed Series A ever raised by a Black founder. That matters. It expands what's possible for founders who don't fit the pattern.

But let me be clear: we raised this money because of what we've built.

In 13 months, we've served more than 5,000 businesses across America, including manufacturers, healthcare providers, hospitality groups, transportation fleets, construction firms, and the bars and restaurants that anchor every Main Street in this country.

We thrive on complex risks. The businesses with real operations, real employees, real liability exposure. The ones where getting coverage right actually matters.

Harper uses AI to do what used to require an army of analysts: reading applications, routing submissions, following up with underwriters, managing quotes, answering questions at 2 am. Our proprietary models handle the judgment-heavy, unstructured work that slows traditional insurance down.

Businesses get coverage in 24-48 hours, not weeks.

Every business in America needs insurance, and there's enough capacity across carriers to cover every single one.

Supply and demand were never the problem. Complex businesses needed real expertise, which was once impossible to scale.

AI changes that.

Harper isn't selling software to legacy brokerages and hoping they figure it out. We are the brokerage. We own the customer relationship. We do the work. And because AI can execute judgment at scale, we can deliver the quality of service that used to be reserved for Fortune 500 companies to every manufacturer, every healthcare facility, every fleet operator in middle America.

This is AI applied where speed actually changes outcomes. Without coverage, a daycare can't open. A logistics company can't onboard new drivers. A restaurant group can't expand into a new market. These aren't abstract use cases. They're people whose livelihoods depend on getting this right. For them, AI-enabled speed changes outcomes.

The money we've raised will do three things:

1. Scale our team. We're hiring engineers, account managers, and operators who want to build something that matters.

2. Expand our carrier relationships. We already work with 165+ underwriters. We're going deeper: more direct appointments, more programs, more capacity for complex commercial risks.

3. Invest in the AI infrastructure that lets us deliver Fortune 500-level service to every business in America.

This is insurance as it should've been all along: simple, fair, with no runaround. Coverage that meets businesses where they are. A company that actually helps.

Business owners waiting too long for effective coverage, we built Harper for you. Builders hoping to work on something that matters, we're hiring. Everyone else, watch this space.

We're just getting started.