- Credit Karma has agreed to acquire technology and assets from Zendrive, a mobility risk intelligence provider.
- Credit Karma has also brought on certain Zendrive employees, including the company’s CEO Dennis Ellis and its Co-founder and CTO Pankaj Risbood.
- Terms of the deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter, were not disclosed.
Intuit’s Credit Karma announced today that it has agreed to acquire technology, assets, and select employees from mobility risk intelligence provider Zendrive. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Credit Karma will use the new technology to accelerate development and adoption of its auto insurance product, Karma Drive. Launched in December of 2020, Karma Drive leverages Zendrive to offer customers a telematics-powered, usage-based insurance savings opportunity based on their driving habits. After a 30-day driving trial, during which users receive continuous real-time feedback on their driving, they are offered a potential discount on a new policy from one of Credit Karma’s auto insurance partners.
Since launch, more than 6 million members have enrolled in the Karma Drive program, which has extended more than 4 million discounted policy offers from Credit Karma’s insurance partners.
“We see opportunities to improve traditional telematics practices that lock consumers into a policy and track driving behaviors in a way that can potentially increase policy costs,” said Credit Karma’s Rory Joyce in a blog post announcement. “We have redefined and simplified consumers’ access to insurance discounts based on mobile telematics data. Karma Drive users can see if they can qualify for a discount from carriers without having to buy a policy or even engage directly with the insurer.”
As part of today’s deal, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year, Credit Karma has acqui-hired certain Zendrive employees, including the company’s CEO Dennis Ellis and its Co-founder and CTO Pankaj Risbood. Credit Karma anticipates the new talent will help it to scale its telematics experience.