Senior Data Scientist

Nirvana's $100M Series D bets big on AI to revolutionize commercial insurance. Fresh off an $80M Series C, the startup eyes an AI operating system to tackle telematics, claims and rising rates for fleets. Key takeaways: AI-driven insurer Nirvana Insurance announced Thursday it has secured a pre-emptive $100 million Series D funding round to expand the company's AI-powered commercial insurance offerings. The round was led by Valor Equity Partners, with participation from prior rounds' lead investors Lightspeed Venture Partners and General Catalyst. The Series D follows closely on the heels of an $80 million Series C completed in March. According to a company release, Nirvana aims to build the world's first AI-powered operating system for insurance. That expansion includes developing unique solutions to better incorporate telematics into insurance products. Rushil Goel, Nirvana's co-founder and CEO, told FreightWaves in an email that one reason for the company's rapid expansion is growing demand for better commercial vehicle insurance offerings. Goel noted that in 2025 alone, Nirvana has scaled its fleet and non-fleet businesses, doubling their size while maintaining best-in-class loss ratios. One of those offerings is insurance for non-trucking commercial fleets, such as those for general and artisan contractors, service fleets, wholesalers, distributors and manufacturers. On the claims side, the company has used its AI innovations to shift to handling 100% of claims in-house while accelerating the claims closure rate. According to Goel, the in-house claims operation has achieved double the industry average closure rate within 30 days. Cost factors are another challenge Nirvana hopes to help fleets address. Goel noted that policies continue to grow more expensive for cash-strapped fleets. "Cost and sustainability continue to be the biggest challenge - we're seeing the insurance industry raise rates about 20% on average, with certain cohorts getting hit much harder," Goel said. "We're also seeing underwriting guidelines tighten up, putting more pressure on motor carriers to find ways to optimize the safety of their operations. These shifts make the precision and cost savings we offer even more of a differentiator." Another area where Nirvana is using its AI is in the policy underwriting process. The company has created more than a dozen AI-powered underwriting tools to help users better understand risk and reduce the manual workload that slows the underwriting process. "The biggest impacts are on things like automating the analysis of loss runs, understanding routes and individual driver performance, and making quote and pricing options easier to develop and explain," Goel said. Looking ahead, expect more AI offerings as the technology is deployed across all aspects of the supply chain. "The promise of AI is not incremental; it gives us an opportunity to rethink industries entirely, from first principles to create the best solutions for the challenges of today and tomorrow," Nirvana CEO Rushil Goel said in the release. "At Nirvana, we're building insurance the way it needs to exist in the AI era: with data at the center, models trained on billions of real-world miles, and an OS that can redefine underwriting, claims and services for the industry at scale."

EPA gives trucking OEMs whiplash with emissions rule rollback plan(Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)On Wednesday, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the EPA is reviewing the emissions rulemaking put in place under the Biden-Harris administration. The important part for trucking comes from targeting the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Heavy-Duty Vehicles – Phase 3, or just Phase 3, rules, which began with model year 2027 trucks and extended through 2032. Opponents to the rulemaking argued that the added emissions reduction requirements for nitrogen oxide would add tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of a new Class 8 tractor. Additionally, at the recent 2025 TMC annual meeting, the Commercial Carrier Journal reported, “Mike Tunnell, senior director of environmental affairs and research at American Trucking Associations, noted a modern diesel truck has seen a 99% reduction in NOx since 1973 and 99% in PM emissions since 1987.”While the EPA is looking to terminate emissions rulemaking, the larger fight may be with the California Air Resources Board’s rulemaking. While CARB withdrew its Advanced Clean Fleets rule during the waning days of the Biden administration, it still has the Advanced Clean Trucks rule in place. CARB also has seen other states adopt its policies. CCJ adds, “Class 7 8 truck-tractors sold in model year 2024 will have to be 5% zero-emission-based rising to 40% by 2032

General Catalyst led the round, with continued support from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Valor Equity Partners.