Briza, an Austin, Texas-based commercial insurance-as-a-service API, closed an $8M Series A funding.

The round, which brings total funding to date to $11m USD, was led by Investment Group of Santa Barbara, with participation from existing investors including 500 Startups.

The company intends to use the funds to double the size of its engineering team to double down on insurer API integrations and increase the supply of insurance markets available to insurance retailers, wholesalers, and developers through its platform.

Led by Ben Munro, CEO, and Rishi Sharma, CTO, Briza is investing in building the infrastructure to aggregate carrier quote, bind, and payment capabilities – all via one unified API. This empowers developers to create user experiences, and democratize commercial insurance APIs by allowing them to be consumed by as broad an audience as possible.

The company, which was part of 500 Startups Batch 26 in the winter of 2020, now has agreements in place with 11 commercial insurers, including industry leaders like Liberty Mutual, Berkshire Hathaway Guard, CNA, Hiscox, AmTrust, Markel, EMPLOYERS, Crum & Forster, and Acuity, along with digital-enabled providers such as Coalition and Coterie.

Briza now has 25 employees.