# Harper

> Harper is an AI-native commercial insurance brokerage based in San Francisco that matches small and mid-sized businesses with more than 160 insurance carriers for workers' compensation, general liability, and professional liability coverage. Founded in 2024 by second-time founders Dakotah Rice and Tushar Nair and backed by Y Combinator (W25), Harper uses internally built AI to automate submission routing, form completion, underwriter follow-ups, and document collection - work that often takes traditional brokers five to seven days and that Harper aims to do in one to two. The company has served more than 5,000 businesses across 35 states and raised $47M in combined seed and Series A funding.

- **Founded:** 2024
- **Headquarters:** San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founders:** Dakotah Rice (Co-founder & CEO), Tushar Nair (Co-founder & CTO)
- **Team size:** ~64 employees
- **Products:** Harper Hub, Commercial insurance brokerage
- **Notable:** Raised $47M in combined seed and Series A funding led by Emergence Capital, Largest publicly disclosed Series A ever raised by a Black founder in the United States, Served 5,000+ businesses across 35 states in roughly 13 months

## Products & services

- **Harper Hub** — The core AI platform that automates form completion, identifies the optimal carriers and underwriters for each client, routes submissions, manages underwriter follow-ups, collects documents, and handles client communications.
- **Commercial insurance brokerage** — A licensed, near-autonomous agency placing workers' compensation, general liability, and professional liability coverage for small and mid-sized businesses across 35 states via 160+ carriers.

## Achievements

- Raised $47M in combined seed and Series A funding led by Emergence Capital
- Largest publicly disclosed Series A ever raised by a Black founder in the United States
- Served 5,000+ businesses across 35 states in roughly 13 months
- Wrote $6M+ in annualized premiums since launching customer operations in October
- Built a carrier network of 160+ insurers / 165+ underwriters

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — Announced $47M in combined seed and Series A funding led by Emergence Capital - reported as the largest publicly disclosed Series A by a Black founder in the US.
- **2025-10** — Began writing customer policies, scaling to $6M+ in annualized premiums across 35 states.
- **2025-01** — Participated in Y Combinator's Winter 2025 (W25) batch and launched the AI-native brokerage publicly.

## Links

- Website: https://www.harperinsure.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/harperinsure
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/Harper_Insure

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/harper-yc-w25
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-15