Because the U.S. trucking trade gears up for the unfavorable impacts of recent Trump tariffs on items from Mexico and Canada, a startup constructing a brand new form of trucking insurance coverage — a essential price for truck drivers — has raised some cash to develop, and (it hopes) assist truckers climate the modifications.
Nirvana, an AI-based insurance coverage platform that makes use of real-time driving telematics plus 20 billion miles of truck driving information to construct and handle insurance coverage insurance policies for truckers, has raised $80 million in new funding. The Collection C will likely be used to construct extra companies for fleets and particular person drivers.
The funding values Nirvana at $830 million post-money. That is greater than double Nirvana’s earlier valuation of $350 million, courting from when it raised a Collection B in October 2023.
Rushil Goel, Nirvana’s CEO and co-founder, described the spherical as “pre-emptive” — raised on the again of inbound curiosity somewhat than the startup needing the money.
The funding is coming from three earlier backers, with Common Catalyst main and Lightspeed Enterprise Companions and Valor Fairness Companions collaborating.
The buyers are doubling down amidst some development for the San Francisco-based startup. Nirvana stated that its complete worth in premiums beneath administration is now at over $100 million, doubling within the final yr.
Nirvana’s development is coming on the nexus of some traits.
The trucking trade is probably an unlimited marketplace for Nirvana and others. Total, U.S. trucking generated greater than $900 billion in revenues in 2024, accounting for 77% of the freight market within the nation, in line with figures from the American Trucking Association. It employs round 8.5. million folks, 3.5 million of them drivers, with some 14.3 million single-axle and mixture vehicles registered, accounting for some 5% of all motor autos within the nation.
The trade has been on a development for development, up 1.6% in 2025 and projected to development to some $1.46 trillion in revenues by 2035.
That was, nonetheless, earlier than occasions of the final month — specifically, Trump’s wider financial insurance policies and particularly his push to institute import taxes on items from Canada and Mexico to be able to increase federal income, and to drive extra home manufacturing.
“Imposing border taxes on our two largest and most vital buying and selling companions will undo… progress and lift prices for shoppers,” stated the American Trucking Affiliation earlier this month. “The 100,000 full-time hardworking truckers hauling 85% of the floor commerce in items with Mexico and 67% of the products traded with Canada will bear a direct and disproportionate influence.”
Not solely will tariffs scale back cross-border freight, the affiliation added, however they may also enhance operational prices. The worth tag of a brand new truck may rise by as much as $35,000, it estimated, “amounting to a $2 billion annual tax and placing new gear out of attain for small carriers.”
All of this boils all the way down to trucking companies needing to be extra aware than ever earlier than of prices, and that is the place Nirvana is hoping to play a component.
Or, to place it one other approach, that is the place Nirvana wants to play a component — in any other case it’d discover itself hit by the identical issues which are hitting its prospects.
“The tariffs and associated provide chain are disruptions which are actually arising,” Goel stated in an interview. “And naturally, in an trade like trucking, which drives 70% of the freight within the U.S., there’s actually some influence of that to be anticipated. It’s our new actuality.”
The corporate’s platform covers insurance coverage each for fleets (teams of greater than 10 ‘energy models’) and non-fleets (1-9 models), and — like different new gamers in insurance coverage — charging is usage-based, on a “pay as you drive” foundation that additionally incorporates security information utilizing telematics from the autos plus information logged by the FMSCA, the trucking regulator.
That security information additionally kinds a part of the corporate’s safety analytics product. Along with this and the underwriting tech that Nirvana claims produces quotes 15 instances quicker than a conventional insurer, it additionally has constructed AI instruments that it says automates and quickens claims processing.
Much like different legacy markets like industrial expertise, trucking has been a ripe space for tech startups during the last a number of years.
Tapping into improvements in areas like cloud computing, AI, fintech, and linked autos, startups are spinning up new SaaS-based merchandise to assist drivers construct out their companies extra effectively and trucking corporations run their fleets extra seamlessly. Different corporations in the identical area embrace Lula (backed by Khosla and others), SmartHop, Fairmatic and CloudTrucks.
Past that, startups are taking formidable swings on the vehicles themselves, engaged on electrical and autonomous autos for the following technology of transportation.
Equally, insurance coverage has been in the midst of an evolution. A wave of “insurtech” startups have rethought the way to provision insurance coverage for shoppers. Taking part in on the idea of “neobanks” that create a extra dynamic person expertise on high of legacy infrastructure, a lot the identical has performed out amongst insurance coverage startups. Alongside this, they’re additionally tapping into improvements round large information and AI to rethink how companies themselves are priced and provisioned.
Common Catalyst declined to be interviewed for this story, nevertheless it’s notable that its largest bigwig, CEO Hemant Taneja, is main this spherical for the agency, a sign of its confidence on this explicit guess.
“Insurance coverage is historically a technologically bereft market, ripe for change. Nirvana is proving a disruptive mannequin, discovering wealthy information at scale and constructing AI across the advanced steps of offering industrial insurance coverage from quote by way of claims,” he stated in an announcement. “We’ve been excited to be a accomplice of their unbelievable outcomes, and this funding will speed up Nirvana even additional.”