Jetty

Jetty is a New York-based digital renters insurance and security-deposit-alternative MGA founded in late 2015 by Michael (Mike) Rudoy and Luke Cohler. Neither founder came from the insurance industry — Rudoy had been frustrated by renters insurance coverage for his own apartment, and Cohler had struggled to secure a U.S. lease after several years living in Brazil. The original thesis was that the roughly 100M+ U.S. renter population was structurally under-served by incumbent P&C carriers distributing through captive agents, and that a mobile-first, product-bundled, D2C InsurTech platform could build a high-LTV franchise around the "moment of move-in" — where the renter needs renters insurance, a security-deposit alternative, and a lease guarantor in a single workflow.

Capital formation. Jetty raised a $4M Seed round in May 2016 led by Ribbit Capital with participation from SV Angel and others, followed by a $10.5M round in February 2018 and a $25M Series B in February 2019 led by Khosla Ventures' Keith Rabois — who joined the board at that round and drew explicit "Lemonade competitor" coverage from Insurance Business America and TechCrunch. Through the Series B, cumulative funding reached approximately $40M. In September 2021, Jetty raised a further $23M co-led by Citi and Flourish Ventures (the ex-Omidyar fintech fund), bringing total capital raised to approximately $78M according to REI INK's coverage at the time. Crunchbase and Tracxn report slightly lower aggregated equity figures (~$65.5M) depending on convertible-note treatment. No Series C was ever announced.

Product stack. Jetty runs three retail-facing products. (1) Jetty Protect is renters insurance — contents coverage, liability, additional living expense, replacement-cost reimbursement, and bedbug-infestation cover, priced from approximately $5/month. (2) Jetty Deposit is a security-deposit alternative: in place of a cash deposit of typically 1-2 months' rent, the renter pays a non-refundable monthly fee to Jetty, and the property owner is indemnified for damage and unpaid rent up to the underwritten limit. (3) Jetty Lease Guaranty underwrites the renter's lease obligations to the landlord in exchange for a fee of roughly 5-10% of annual rent, serving renters who cannot meet traditional income or co-signer requirements. The 2021 capital round also funded a flexible rent-payment product (Jetty Rent Flex), which splits the monthly rent obligation into sub-monthly installments.

MGA-as-tech, not carrier-as-tech. Unlike Lemonade, which owns its admitted U.S. carrier (Lemonade Insurance Company) and its EU insurer (Lemonade Insurance N.V.), Jetty has always operated as a Managing General Agent on top of third-party paper. Jetty Protect is issued by State National Insurance Company (NAIC 12831, a Markel Group subsidiary) in 49 states and by National Specialty Insurance Company (NAIC 22608) in Florida; reinsurance sits with Munich Re and Farmers Insurance Group affiliates. Jetty does quote/bind/service but takes no balance-sheet loss. This matters for the business model: Jetty's revenue is commission/fee income, it does not accumulate float, and underwriting profitability is largely the reinsurer's problem — but it also means growth is capped by capacity-partner appetite, and loss-ratio volatility on the Protect book directly threatens renewal of fronting and reinsurance treaties.

The 2020 near-death experience. In April 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic hit U.S. rental housing, Jetty laid off approximately 40% of its workforce (~35 employees) and paused sales of new insurance policies, per The Real Deal's reporting at the time. The company survived the cash crunch but the early D2C InsurTech thesis — the Khosla Ventures 2019 Series B pitch — did not scale the way Rabois and the board had underwritten. The 2021 Citi/Flourish round and the ensuing product strategy pivoted Jetty decisively from consumer-first distribution to enterprise-first property-management distribution.

The property-management B2B2C pivot. By 2022-2024, Jetty had repositioned itself as a financial-services platform embedded inside the property owner's tenant onboarding flow. Jetty's marketing surface is now organized around property-manager partnerships: only residents of communities that have signed a Jetty partnership can purchase Jetty Protect — prospects without a property-manager-issued sign-up link cannot even obtain a quote. Partner list includes Blackstone-owned StuyTown (a flagship NYC reference cited by Bisnow), AHS Residential, and Preiss. This is a complete reversal of the 2017-2019 "Lemonade competitor that goes straight to consumers" positioning and makes Jetty functionally a B2B2C enterprise SaaS-plus-MGA business with a multifamily-GTM motion, not a D2C InsurTech.

The 2025 Rhino merger. On February 6, 2025, Jetty announced an all-stock merger with Rhino, its principal U.S. security-deposit-insurance competitor, to form the largest security-deposit insurance company in the U.S. rental housing market. The combined entity serves over 6 million rental units and partners with 47 of the NMHC's top 100 property owners — including Greystar, Highmark Residential, UDR Apartments, and Morgan Properties — with a combined claim of having helped renters retain more than $4 billion in upfront move-in costs. Georges Clement (formerly Rhino's COO) became CEO of the combined company, with Mike Rudoy joining the board and Rhino co-founder Ben Lantos moving to Senior Advisor. Both product suites continue under their existing brands. Capacity for the combined security-deposit book is provided by AmTrust Financial Services and The Fortegra Group (a Tiptree subsidiary); renters insurance capacity remains with State National / National Specialty as before. Transaction terms were not disclosed; Goodwin advised Jetty.

Operational status (April 2026). Jetty is operational. The jetty.com website is live, Jetty Protect is sold (through partnered communities only), Jetty Deposit and Jetty Lease Guaranty continue under the brand, and 2026-dated reviews exist at NerdWallet, U.S. News, Consumers Advocate, and TenantGuide. The company is not discontinued. It is, however, a very different business from the 2019 Khosla-led D2C thesis: a subsidiary brand inside a Clement-led, property-manager-focused security-deposit insurtech, distributing a commodity-adjacent renters insurance product via an enterprise channel, with heavy dependence on fronting carriers and reinsurers for risk capital.

Market positioning and gaps. Jetty does not appear in publicly indexed Gartner, Forrester, or Celent leader quadrants for renters/residential underwriting or MGA platforms. Recognition is concentrated in real-estate and InsurTech trade press (The Real Deal, Bisnow, Propmodo, HousingWire, Coverager, The Insurer, Insurance Business America, REI INK) and early-stage tech press (TechCrunch). Independent validation of its loss-ratio, claims-handling efficiency, or regulatory posture is limited. NerdWallet's 2026 review flags an unusually high rate of consumer complaints to state regulators relative to median renters carriers — a signal that low headline pricing ($5/month) and property-management-bundled distribution create customer-satisfaction friction at the regulator level that the MGA-as-tech narrative does not paper over.