Online insurance company Next Insurance has named former Fitbit executive Melanie Chase its new Chief Marketing Officer, and former Yelp executive Effi Fuks Leichtag is now the company’s Chief Product Officer.
Located in Palo Alto, CA, Next Insurance provides digital small business insurance coverage—including general liability, professional liability, commercial auto and workers’ compensation—to more than 70,000 customers across the US. The company recently announced it raised $250 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total funding to $381 million in just over three years, with a valuation of over $1 billion.
"We've come a long way and we're just getting started," said Guy Goldstein, Co-Founder and CEO of Next Insurance. "We are striving for excellence here at Next Insurance and we believe a large part of that is bringing onboard new executive talent with proven success to help take our growth to the next level.”
Chase spent six years as the Vice President of Marketing at Fitbit where she helped the company become one of the world's top health and fitness brands. She boasts years of experience in high-growth consumer electronics and software marketing, brand building, advertising, and product strategy. In her new role at Next Insurance, she will oversee the company's marketing brand, strategy and operations.
And Leichtag most recently served as Yelp’s Vice President of Product Management. He began his career in product management at Kifi (which was acquired by Google) before serving as Chief Operations and Product Officer at Complete Labs. He also founded and led the product management teams in several other startups including ExPOS and Fribiz.
In addition to expanding its staff, Next is using its latest round of funding, received by German-based Munich Re, to build new products and further its customer initiatives in its goal to become a “one-stop shop” for small business P&C insurance needs. The company already offers Live Certificate, the industry’s first real-time certificate of insurance verification, as well as an online portal where policyholders can add additional insureds, update policy or payment information, send verifiable proof of insurance, and more, all from a smartphone or computer.
