TechCrunch Startup News Y Combinator grad and AI insurance brokerage Harper raises $47M; plus, AI chip startup MatX raised $500M
Feb 25, 2026
A startup selling AI-native insurance for small businesses and how it automates matching with 160+ carriers. A mega funding round for a chip company aiming to rival GPUs for large language model training. Discussion of founders’ backgrounds, investor lists, production plans and ambitious shipping timelines.
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Founder Returned To Insurance After Startup Failure
- Dakota Rice returned to insurance after Pulit's collapse and named the new brokerage Harper after his mother's maiden name.
- He and Tushar Nair pivoted from building AI tools for brokers to launching an AI-native agency that launched in 2024 and joined YCW25.
AI Cuts Broker Turnaround From Days To One Two Days
- Harper is built as an almost fully autonomous licensed commercial insurance agency using AI to replace many manual broker tasks.
- The company matches SMBs to 160+ carriers and shrinks processes that take five to seven days down to one to two days.
Automation Enables Thousand Deal Throughput
- AI powers Harper's operational stack: submission routing, underwriter follow-ups, document collection, and pipeline management.
- That automation enabled Harper to sign more than 5,000 customers and handle over a thousand customers per month.