ProtectU raises $100K angel round to simplify insurance with AI
What's the deal? ProtectUDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Uruguayan startup that uses AI to help people understand their insurance policies, has raised $100,000 from an angel investor. Founded by Juan Manuel Ramos and Guillermo Fernández, the company built a digital wallet where users can centralise all their policies and query them in plain language through an AI assistant called Amparo.
Amparo translates policy jargon, identifies documents automatically, and answers specific coverage questions — like whether a particular incident is covered. The startup targets a universal pain point: people understand their insurance when they buy it, then quickly forget what it covers.
"People buy insurance, understand it for the first two weeks, and then forget about it," Ramos told InfoNegocios Uruguay. "Not because they're careless, but because everyone's mind is elsewhere."
Why now? ProtectU had been entirely bootstrapped until this round. The funds will go toward development, marketing, and scaling. The company has already signed partnerships with Sancor SegurosDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, SBI Seguros, and Universal AssistanceDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — deals that Ramos says go beyond distribution into joint innovation.
Ramos came up with the idea after returning to Uruguay from a stint at Delivery Hero (PedidosYaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →'s parent company) in Berlin. He partnered with Fernández, whom he'd met at TechCrunch Disrupt 2017 in San Francisco and who had been building tech products through his software studio, Cavepot.
The startup aims to reach 5,000 users in 2026 and expand internationally in 2027.
What could go wrong? $100,000 is a modest sum, even for a Latin American early-stage startup. ProtectU will need to prove traction quickly to attract follow-on funding. Insurance is also a heavily regulated sector, and cross-border expansion could introduce compliance complexity that strains a small team's resources.
Competing with incumbents' own digital tools — or larger insurtechs — on user trust and distribution will be another challenge.
The signal: At just $100,000, this is a micro-round even by Latin American standards, but it points to a growing appetite for AI-first tools that sit between consumers and legacy insurance infrastructure. ProtectU's partnerships with established insurers such as Sancor Seguros suggest incumbents themselves see value in outsourcing the user-experience layer rather than building it in-house — a dynamic that could give nimble early-stage startups a distribution shortcut in a sector notorious for high customer-acquisition costs.
Read more: Startups LatAm
