# Tolga Tezel

> Tolga Tezel is the founder and CEO of Canopy Connect, an insurance data infrastructure company that lets consumers securely share their insurance information with agents and businesses in seconds. A University of Waterloo electrical engineering graduate and former early engineer at Dropbox and Nova Credit, he prototyped Canopy Connect over a weekend after a dinner conversation with a friend's mother who ran an insurance agency. Since founding the company in February 2020, he has grown it to serve thousands of agencies and raised a $6.5M Series A, building what he describes as trusted, consumer-permissioned infrastructure for property and casualty insurance data.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Canopy Connect
- **Organizations:** Canopy Connect
- **Nationality:** Canadian
- **Education:** Bachelor of Applied Science (BASc), Electrical Engineering, Honours Co-op, University of Waterloo
- **Known for:** Founded Canopy Connect and grew it to serve thousands of insurance agencies and agents, Raised a $6.5M Series A round in 2023 (roughly $6.5M total funding), Built data coverage spanning 96% of the auto market and 91% of the homeowners market across P&C lines

## Career timeline

- **2011** — First internship at an insurtech startup, sparking his interest in startups
- **2013** — Graduated from the University of Waterloo after six co-op internships; joined a startup acquired by Dropbox, moving to California
- **2018** — Joined fintech company Nova Credit as a software engineer, working on consumer-permissioned financial data
- **2020** — Founded Canopy Connect (February), starting solo
- **2021** — Canopy Connect became first in its category to complete a SOC 2 audit (November)
- **2023** — Raised $6.5M Series A funding round
- **2025** — Canopy Connect expands integrations across the insurance ecosystem, including Bindable and TurboRater

## Achievements

- Founded Canopy Connect and grew it to serve thousands of insurance agencies and agents
- Raised a $6.5M Series A round in 2023 (roughly $6.5M total funding)
- Built data coverage spanning 96% of the auto market and 91% of the homeowners market across P&C lines
- Led Canopy Connect to be first in its category to complete a SOC 2 audit (November 2021)
- Connected the platform to over 300 insurance carriers
- Early engineer at Dropbox and contributor at Nova Credit before founding his own company

## Latest updates

- **2025-03** — Canopy Connect announced an integration with Bindable to streamline insurance comparison shopping for consumers and agents.
- **2025-02** — Tezel reflected publicly on the company's five-year journey from a San Francisco laptop demo to a widely used insurance data platform.

## Links

- Website: https://usecanopy.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ttezel/
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/tolga_tezel

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/tolga-tezel
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-24