Company Overview
Vic Yeh is Co-Founder & CEO at Cara, a domain-specific AI platform purpose-built for insurance—a modular system that enables agencies, brokerages, and MGAs to automate servicing, accelerate sales, and scale operations with a 24/7 digital workforce. Learn more at getcara.ai.
Can you tell us a little about your background before starting your company?
Before starting Cara, I was an early engineer at Blend ($BLND), a fintech platform powering digital banking experiences for institutions like Wells Fargo and US Bank, across mortgages, account opening, and insurance. At Blend, I helped launch multiple product lines and scale the platform to handle billions of dollars in transaction volume.
Alongside that, I was investing in early-stage software and fintech startups at Polymath Capital, where I had the opportunity to witness startups growing from zero to venture scale.
Those experiences gave me a deep appreciation for the complexity of financial services and the opportunity to use technology to transform legacy industries. The lessons ultimately led me to team up with Nikhil and Jon—friends from Stripe and Strategy&—to build Cara.
What inspired you to become a founder, and how did you identify the need for Cara in the market?
I’ve always believed that when applied thoughtfully, technology can be one of the most powerful forces for improving society. Yet insurance—one of the largest and most critical industries—has historically lagged in adopting modern tools.
At Blend, I had my first glimpse into the outdated, manual workflows that still dominate the insurance space. My co-founders, Nikhil and Jon, brought deep experience from Stripe and Strategy&, and together we saw a unique opportunity to use our backgrounds in financial technology to bring innovation to insurance.
How did you start your company? What were the first steps you took to get it off the ground?
We started by building a next-generation insurance brokerage, previously known as Oyster. As we scaled to thousands of policyholders, it became clear that revenue growth in insurance requires overcoming labor-intensive, repetitive workflows—without dramatically increasing headcount.
To address that, we built the world’s first AI Copilot for commercial insurance agents, powered by large language models. Initially deployed within our brokerage, the Copilot quickly proved its value by delivering measurable ROI and streamlining agent workflows. That internal success sparked strong demand from other agencies and brokerages. What began as an internal tool has since grown into something much bigger.
We call it Cara.
What innovations or unique features set your company apart from others in the industry?
Cara is a domain-specific AI platform purpose-built for insurance—a modular system that enables agencies, brokerages, and MGAs to automate servicing, accelerate sales, and scale operations with a 24/7 digital workforce.
As the industry’s first Agency Intelligence System, Cara is designed to automate back-office and manual workflows—allowing staff to focus on generating premiums and building client relationships.
What sets Cara apart is its built-in deep insurance knowledge and customizability. Each insurance firm configures Cara to fit its unique needs—whether that’s automating coverage comparisons, handling inbound calls through Voice AI, or building custom workflow automations. And because Cara learns from every interaction, it becomes more effective over time.
What has been the most effective strategy for scaling your business?
Word of mouth has been our most powerful growth engine. Many of our customers hear about Cara from industry peers—agencies and brokerages that have experienced firsthand how it transforms back-office operations and drives business results.
We believe that for AI to succeed in a high-barrier, heavily regulated industry like insurance, it must be domain-specific and vertically integrated. That’s why we’ve purpose-built Cara to align deeply with how insurance agencies and brokerages actually operate.
We stay close to our customers—constantly learning from their workflows and evolving use cases. As we continue to deliver measurable outcomes, our customers become our strongest advocates for growth.
