Corvus Insurance is spreading its wings.
The four-year-old insurance-tech startup has landed $100 million in venture capital in its latest round of funding, money that will help the Boston company double its workforce in 2021.
Corvus offers businesses cybersecurity and cargo-shipping insurance policies, with a twist: It uses sophisticated data crunching and artificial intelligence tools to underwrite its policies, safeguard policyholders, and warn its clients when they could be at risk.
The company’s name is inspired by the genus Corvus, which includes tool-making birds such as crows, ravens, and rooks.
New York-based Insight Partners is leading the latest funding round, a Series C round, and is joined by a number of previous Corvus investors, including venture capital firms with local ties such as Bain Capital Ventures and .406 Ventures. The deal values Corvus at $750 million, according to the company. It has raised $147 million in venture capital so far.
Chief executive Phil Edmundson said Corvus plans to employ 260 people by the end of the year, nearly doubling the size of its 135-person workforce. He expects to make about half of the hires in Boston.
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The shift to remote work amid the pandemic has enabled Corvus to be more flexible about where recruits live. “COVID has allowed us, like a lot of other organizations, to seek talent in more diverse places,” he said.
The company is writing premiums at an annualized rate of $120 million, mostly consisting of cybersecurity policies.
“It’s like real-time risk management,” Edmundson said. “We’re able to continuously monitor the threats and the IT security of an organization.”
Demand for cyber insurance policies has risen significantly during the pandemic, with so many workers logging in from remote locations. “It’s increased the awareness of cyber risk among organizations, because of the increased number of employees who are working from home . . . exposing IT networks to many more devices,” he said.
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The ascension of Corvus is one example of the growing “insurtech” scene in Boston, led by a few companies that have already gone public, such as EverQuote and Duck Creek Technologies. The region is a hotbed for cybersecurity, IT, and financial services talent, which is helping to foster a strong insurtech cluster here.
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jonchesto.