AI-Powered Wholesale Insurance Broker Novella Announces $21 Million Capital Raise to Expand Across the United States and Develop AI Agents to Create ‘Super Producers’

Business Wire

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Novella, the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered wholesale insurance broker, has announced it raised $21 million to recruit a team of brokers, continue developing its proprietary AI platform to help brokers become ‘super-producers’, and open a series of regional offices across the United States.

In 2026, New York-based Novella - which has a research and development facility in Tel Aviv, Israel - has opened offices in Miami, Florida, and Houston, Texas, and it plans further US openings, including in southern California in Q2.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer Max Kane said Novella’s AI agents handle placement, binding, form comparison, policy review, subjectivity collection, inspections, billing, endorsements, renewals, and more. This allows producers to focus 100% of their time on building client relationships and growing their books.

“We believe pairing world-class producers with world-class AI is the recipe for success,” said Mr. Kane. “AI will make the best producers far better at their job, enabling them to better serve clients and focus on building bigger, more profitable books of business.”

He said Novella believes that AI won’t replace insurance producers - it will turn the best ones into super-producers, and the industry will concentrate around the people and firms that use AI to empower the best human capital. Novella sees this as a template for how AI transforms other relationship-driven legacy industries: don’t replace the human, automate the back office that surrounds them.

Mr. Kane said he hopes to establish Novella, which is licensed in all 50 US states, as a top five US wholesale Excess and Surplus (E&S) broker with $10 billion of premium within the decade. It has been appointed by close to 100 specialty carriers and MGAs to broker P&C insurance businesses. More than 3,500 retail agencies are currently appointed and sending business to Novella.

Novella was co-founded in 2024 by Mr. Kane, a technology and insurance executive who spent almost four years at Lemonade; Michael Tsibelman, the company’s Chief Technology Officer who has led software teams at firms such as Microsoft, Gigya and DoControl; and insurance broker Alex Broome, Head of Brokerage, who has held key positions at The Baldwin Group and ReShield.

The fund raise was led by Brewer Lane Ventures, and others include Box Group; Crystal Venture Partners; SV Angel; Avid Ventures; Verissimo Ventures; Blank Ventures; and global insurer Arch. Novella was also a participant in the Lloyd’s Lab startup programme at Lloyd’s.

“Wholesale broking, at heart, is about human relationships. Our producers need to be close to our retail brokers, so we will be expanding strategically across the country over the coming years. Novella is the first wholesaler to effectively blend AI and talent," said Chris Downer, General Partner at Brewer Lane Ventures. "Wholesalers spend years building relationships. Novella makes them better at it - that's why top brokers are joining the team, and how they're changing specialty insurance.”

About Novella

Novella is the first AI native insurance wholesaler protecting some of the largest, most complicated physical assets in the world. Novella’s specialty AI agents are trained to help insurance brokers find coverage for their hardest to place customers and underwriters bind more accounts. By pairing world class wholesalers with world class AI, Novella transforms the wholesale transaction into easy and frictionless for brokers, underwriters, and insureds alike.

Learn more at www.bynovella.com.

About Brewer Lane Ventures

Brewer Lane Ventures is an early stage venture firm focused on insurtech and fintech companies. Using our deep knowledge of the insurance and financial services industries, we invest in startups that will transform the market for companies and consumers alike. We bring together domain expertise from founding and scaling startups, venture investing, and running Fortune 100 companies.

Learn more at www.brewerlane.com.