Hippo Is Close to Deal with Mark Pincus, Reid Hoffman SPAC

(Bloomberg) -- Home-insurance startup Hippo Enterprises Inc. is close to a deal to merge with Reinvent Technology Partners Z, a blank-check company started by Zynga Inc. founder Mark Pincus and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, according to people familiar with the matter.

A transaction with the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, could be announced as soon as Thursday, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.

The talks could still fall apart or the terms could change. A deal would value the combined entity at more than $5 billion, Bloomberg has reported.

A spokeswoman for Hippo didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment. A representative for Reinvent declined to comment.

The transaction would allow Hippo to trade publicly after years of expanding throughout the U.S. and snapping up a home-maintenance platform and an insurance carrier. Hippo, led by Chief Executive Officer Assaf Wand, raised capital last July in an investment that valued the company at $1.5 billion.

Another insurance tech company, Metromile Inc., went public in February through a SPAC deal. Metromile, which allows customers to pay for car insurance on a per-mile basis, agreed in November to merge with Insu Acquisition Corp. II.

Hippo’s strategy as an insurtech has been to dig even deeper into the home-insurance market, a sector that totaled $104 billion in the U.S. in 2019. That’s a contrast with other insurance companies such as Lemonade Inc. that have expanded from products such as renters’ policies to life insurance.

Hippo struck a deal for an insurance carrier, Spinnaker Insurance Co., last year. In 2019, it bought a home-maintenance platform called Sheltr to help customers do routine checkups.

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