The company that sold insurance by the hour - then sold the software behind it to the insurers.
When Slice Labs opened its doors in New York in 2015, insurance still moved at the speed of paperwork. Founders Tim Attia, Stuart Baserman and Ernest Hursh set out to change that with a simple premise: people do not want insurance - they want to keep doing the thing they were already doing, protected. So Slice built coverage that switches on for the moment and off again, and in 2016 it launched what it describes as the first on-demand insurance product in the United States.
The first customers were homeshare hosts. A standard homeowner policy rarely covers a paying guest, so Slice offered coverage a host could buy per stay - for platforms like Airbnb, HomeAway, OneFineStay and FlipKey. It then added on-demand cyber insurance sold directly to small businesses. The novelty was not the marketing; it was the underwriting engine underneath, capable of pricing a policy that turned on and off by the hour.
The harder any startup problem is to solve once, the more valuable it becomes to solve for everyone. Slice had built a full digital carrier - so in 2017 it opened that stack up as a product.
That product is Insurance Cloud Services (ICS): a full-stack platform that lets insurers, carriers and technology companies build and launch their own digital, on-demand insurance products. Instead of competing policy-by-policy, Slice started renting out the machinery. The strategy attracted names that had been in the business for more than a century. In 2018, Legal & General used the ICS platform to roll out on-demand homeshare insurance in the UK. In 2019, Sompo signed a proof-of-value contract to license the platform and test digital, on-demand insurance in Asia.
Insurance should be part of other buying experiences - not a separate errand. - The thesis Tim Attia has repeated across insurtech stages
It is an unusual position: when the incumbents you set out to disrupt become your investors and your customers, you have stopped being a threat and become infrastructure. Munich Re, Sompo and The Co-operators all wrote checks. Several then licensed the technology.
By 2019, Slice had reframed its ambition around data. If you can score risk accurately in real time, pricing takes care of itself. Slice Mind is the AI and machine learning engine that resulted. In early 2020 the company commercialized four services aimed at insurers.
A data-driven way to classify a client's business activity - described as a first commercialized approach of its kind in insurance.
Real-time recommendations to reduce exposures and improve a business's cyber posture.
Continuous pricing, underwriting and claims adjustments based on the geographic distribution of risk.
End-to-end digitization of the claims journey - file, assess, settle - built with partner Duuo / The Co-operators.
By 2025, Slice had embedded large language models across the platform, using them to speed small-business and mid-market Excess & Surplus submissions with intelligent automation, real-time insights and a more intuitive quoting and referral flow. The head start, the company argues, is not the model - it is the years of insurance data behind it.
Since the launch of Slice Mind in 2019, AI has always been at the core of Slice's platform. - Slice Insurance, 2025
Three rounds took Slice from a New York seed to a globally licensed platform.
Investors across the rounds include XL Innovate, Horizons Ventures, Munich Re / HSB Ventures, SOMPO, The Co-operators, JetBlue Technology Ventures, Veronorte (Grupo Sura), Plug and Play and Tusk Ventures. The 2018 extension, led by The Co-operators, was aimed squarely at globalizing the on-demand cloud platform.
Today Slice wears two hats. It writes digital-first Excess & Surplus (E&S) insurance for small-to-midsize commercial businesses - products like Contractors General Liability and Excess Casualty - available in more than 40 US states and distributed through agents and brokers. And it licenses the ICS and Slice Mind technology to insurers, carriers and platforms that want to launch their own digital products.
For an agent, that means quoting, binding and referral that is, in the company's words, "seamlessly automated, online, and hassle-free." For a carrier, it means launching a modern product without rebuilding the plumbing.
Tim Attia, Stuart Baserman and Ernest Hursh launch Slice in New York to redesign insurance.
A $3.9M seed round funds on-demand homeshare insurance for hosts.
Led by XL Innovate; Slice offers its on-demand platform to other carriers.
The Co-operators leads a round to globalize ICS; Legal & General partners on UK homeshare cover.
Slice introduces its AI engine and signs a proof-of-value deal with Sompo in Asia.
Industry Prediction, Cyber Risk Modeling, Geographic Scoring and more go commercial.
End-to-end claims launched with partner Duuo / The Co-operators.
Contractors General Liability and Excess Casualty grow in the E&S market.
Large language models power faster small-business and mid-market submissions.
On-demand and digital-first insurtechs are no longer rare - Lemonade, Trov, Cuvva, Zego and Boost Insurance have all pushed on pieces of the same idea. Slice's distinction is that it built a full carrier and then productized it, rather than staying purely consumer-facing or purely a distribution layer. That let it partner with, rather than only compete against, established insurers.
Its second edge is timing. Slice put machine learning at the core in 2019 and layered large language models on top by 2025 - so the AI narrative sits on six years of insurance data and a working underwriting engine, not a fresh bolt-on. And where many insurtechs chased mass-market consumer lines, Slice moved toward Excess & Surplus small-commercial - a segment expensive to underwrite by hand and therefore well suited to automation.
A licensed carrier and a platform vendor at once - premium economics plus SaaS/PaaS licensing.
Slice Mind builds on years of real underwriting and claims data, not a late add-on.
Small-commercial risk that is hard to hand-underwrite - a natural fit for automation.
Slice Labs builds digital, cloud-based insurance. It writes Excess & Surplus coverage for small-to-midsize businesses and licenses its Insurance Cloud Services and Slice Mind AI platform to insurers and carriers.
Slice Labs was founded in 2015 in New York by Tim Attia (CEO), Stuart Baserman and Ernest Hursh.
About $35.5M total - a $3.9M seed, an $11.6M Series A (2017) and a $20M Series A extension (2018) - from backers including Munich Re, XL Innovate, Sompo and The Co-operators.
Slice Mind is Slice's AI and machine learning engine, launched in 2019, offering services such as Industry Prediction, Cyber Risk Modeling and Geographic Scoring, and now embedding large language models across underwriting, quoting and claims.
Digital-first Excess & Surplus commercial insurance - including Contractors General Liability and Excess Casualty - for small and mid-market businesses across 40+ US states, sold through agents and brokers.