Celebrating 5 Years of Canopy Connect: Our Journey and What's Ahead

Five years ago, Canopy Connect was born from a simple yet powerful idea: sharing verified insurance information should be as easy as a few clicks. Today, as we celebrate our fifth anniversary, we reflect on how far we’ve come—from a spark of inspiration to a growing team of over 25, multiple product launches, and a platform that has transformed the insurance industry.

How It All Started

Our founder and CEO, Tolga Tezel, was no stranger to building technology that empowers people. Before Canopy Connect, he was an early engineer at Dropbox and later at Nova Credit, where he worked on helping newcomers gain fair access to credit using foreign credit data. That experience showed him the potential of consumer-permissioned data to improve lives. Then came the moment of inspiration. In a conversation with an insurance agent, Tolga learned about the frustrating and outdated process of verifying insurance. The agent had to physically drive to a client’s home to help them download their dec page—just to give them a quote. In an era where bank accounts could be linked to apps in seconds, why wasn’t there a similar solution for insurance? That was the turning point. Tolga knew there had to be a better way. And so, Canopy Connect was created.

Five years ago I was walking around San Francisco knocking on the doors of insurance agencies with my laptop in hand to show them Canopy Connect with just one insurance connection. I was excited about helping insureds make better and faster decisions on their insurance, and inspired by the innovation in Open Banking that helped financial institutions serve their customers better. I saw an opportunity to bring consumer permissioned data to the insurance industry.
Tolga Tezel, Founder and CEO of Canopy Connect

Reimagining Insurance Verification

The traditional way of verifying insurance is riddled with inefficiencies—scavenger hunts for documents, endless phone calls, and frustrating wait times. Canopy Connect set out to change that narrative by introducing a seamless, 20-second process where consumers can securely share their insurance information directly from their carrier.

I’m extremely proud of the work Canopy Connect has done in the past five years to serve the unique needs of the insurance ecosystem. Canopy Connect has empowered consumers with the gold standard for securely sharing their insurance information with the businesses they interact with.
Sam Corso, Carrier Integrations Lead

A Growing Team, A Growing Vision

‎From a small startup to a thriving company, Canopy Connect has evolved tremendously. Over the past five years, we have:

• Grown to a team of over 25 passionate people.
• Launched multiple products to better serve agents, lenders, and carriers
• Grew from collecting policy dec pages, to structured data, to a complete insurance data intake platform.
• Built out 15+ integrations with raters, CRMs, AMSs, and other systems.
• Expanded to more than 300 carrier connections including 96% of the auto insurance market, 91% of the homeowners insurance market, and 56% of the commercial insurance market.

I never would have imagined where we’ve gotten to in the past five years. Millions of insureds have shared their insurance policies via our platform. Some of the largest brands in insurance, fintech, mortgage and automotive are powered by Canopy Connect. Carriers are beginning to partner with us on data access and automation. We’ve come a long way in the past five years, but I’m even more excited about what’s ahead.
Tolga Tezel, Founder and CEO of Canopy Connect

What's Next?

We’re turning tedious business processes for insurance sales and servicing into one-click experiences. Connecting to the best sources of truth for insurance data and pushing it into the systems businesses use to serve their customers.

We’re also doubling down on verification and monitoring. Businesses need to ensure insurance policies are compliant with their business requirements, and they want to create touchpoints to engage policyholders with valuable insurance advice.

As we step into the next chapter, our mission remains the same: to make insurance data accessible, simple, and valuable for everyone. We’re grateful for our customers, partners, and team members who have helped make Canopy Connect what it is today.