via Wall Street Journal
Insurance startup Oscar Health Insurance Corp. has a powerful new ally in its uphill battle to win customers from entrenched insurance giants: Google Inc.
Google Capital, the Internet company’s growth-equity fund, has invested $32.5 million in Oscar, the startup’s CEO said in an interview. The deal values two-year-old Oscar at $1.75 billion, up from a valuation of $1.5 billion when it last took funding in April, said a person familiar with the transaction.
Oscar has amassed a war chest of more than $350 million in its bid to use data and technology to make the insurance business work more like an Internet service, drawing on things such as telemedicine. In the process, it is going up against such leaders in the field as UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Anthem Inc.
