The General awards entrepreneur grant to sneaker insurtech
The insurance company also provided mentoring opportunities to six students at historically Black universities.
As part of Black Entrepreneurs Day celebrations, The General Insurance gave its second annual $25,000 NAACP Powershift Entrepreneur Grant to Phil Terrill, CEO and Founder of Minnesota-based insurance company SoleSafe.
Dubbed the “first sneaker insurance for the culture,” the company offers real time, dynamic coverage for high-end shoes. Projects set the primary sneaker market at $24 billion, and the resale market continues to see rapid year-on-year growth, The General reports.
“The General’s NAACP Powershift Entrepreneur Grant is a tremendous blessing and an investment in what I think we will add more soul — pun intended — to insurance,” Terrill says. “The grant will be used to accelerate our technology development that I have been bootstrapping and recently committed to full-time after quitting my job at Microsoft.”
He tells PropertyCasualty360.com the funds will also help launch the company’s initial marketing activities to engage sneaker-lovers as well as potential investors.
“It’s been our honor to support Black Entrepreneurs Day and the NAACP Powershift Entrepreneur Grant again this year,” Azali said in a release. “The mission to support Black entrepreneurs is something The General believes in wholeheartedly — and Phil Terrill and his company SoleSafe are the embodiment of an outstanding and rising Black entrepreneur and company in not only the Black community, but in the insurance space as well. Our hope is that this grant and education helps Phil reach not only his goals, but those of SoleSafe, and empowers him to be the extraordinary entrepreneur he is.”
In addition to the $25,000 grant, Terrill will also receive one-on-one mentoring from former NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, entrepreneur Daymond John and Elicia Azali, enterprise chief marketing officer at American Family Insurance (The General’s parent company).
“Those direct connections will further enhance the business and improve our ability to deliver a solution that resonates with both the sneaker and insurance communities,” Terrill says of the mentorships.
A self-professed “sneakerhead,” Terrill’s collection includes hundreds of pairs. This made him consider the possibility for insurance beyond “traditional products available to insure personal property or valuables,” he explains. “I thought it might be possible, and the time, to reimagine how insurance viewed what I call “cultural assets,” and create something built by the culture, for the culture.”
Mentorships for business students
As part of the event, The General also awarded six business students at Morehouse College and Tennessee State University, two historically black colleges, with one-on-one mentoring sessions with O’Neal and Azali and other items to support their studies.
More than 6 million people attended the free virtual event, The General reported.
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