Scout InsurTech Interview with DataHaven

DataHaven is a data infrastructure, governance and analytics company. They seek to empower insurance carriers, MGAs and brokers to instantly search and share insights from your enterprise systems. Chris Luiz sat with Founder and CEO, Yandy Plasencia, to learn more about how DataHaven is impacting the industry.

Who are your clients?

My customer is ideally tier 3 and 4 carriers, both P&C and Life. While the product is currently 100 percent focused on P&C, I am speaking with a life insurance prospect, and the underlying data issues are quite similar. The ideal customer is a carrier under $1 billion in premium, although I’m currently working with one that’s $3.2 billion. These are companies that face persistent data challenges, such as delays in launching new products or executing migrations, due to disorganized or incomplete underlying data. These issues are what typically initiate conversations with us.

What does your product do?

We connect to all core systems of record, extract and analyze the schemas and metadata and compare that to our library of known vendor data structures. Then we apply a machine learning model trained using low-rank adaptations to design a custom data warehouse aligned to the KPIs the customer needs to track. The onboarding process includes a Q&A to uncover key questions they struggle to answer. 

Based on that, we generate ETL pipelines, build the data lakehouse and also create training datasets to fine-tune the adapter model over time. On the end-user side, the system provides a simple interface for querying and generating reports, including natural language explanations of the data used. The system is also expandable—for example, into compliance reporting or third-party data access. Every customer has an isolated instance that can grow with their use cases.

How much capital have you raised?

I started with a consulting firm, which is still active and produces revenue. That revenue has been reinvested into the core platform. So far, I’ve self-funded the company with about $2.7 million. It’s all my own investment.

Was the company born from within or outside the industry?

The company emerged through consulting engagements with insurance clients. I was originally an accountant doing BI work but saw firsthand the massive data issues insurers face. That pushed me to learn coding, become a full stack developer and eventually understand machine learning deeply enough to drive product development.

What growth metrics have you accomplished over the last 12 months?

The most important metric for me has been validation. For instance, I pitched in front of carriers in New York, and two of them came up to me afterward and said, “Your pitch made it personal. I understand; we’re having that problem.” That type of resonance and confirmation is more meaningful to me than early revenue. However, with the four current prospects, we’re on track to cross $1.5 million in ARR post-pilots.

Within your domain, what is the current challenge that the industry is facing?

My biggest concern is that too many AI companies are offering “magic wand” solutions without understanding the industry’s real pain points. They’re chasing trends rather than building trust and understanding what truly matters to carriers. I’m not trying to jump on the AI bandwagon; instead, I use AI to enhance a deeply grounded solution rooted in understanding a carrier’s data architecture and operational needs.

At DataHaven, AI is not the product; it’s the infrastructure. We use LoRA-based models to support better access, faster transformation and more intelligent decision-making but always anchored in each customer’s real data environment.

How does DataHaven take a unique approach to providing value?

We start with relationships and conversations. I always ask: why are we even talking? What problem are you facing? I want to understand the pain point first and build from there. Every engagement is highly personalized to ensure it delivers high impact rather than just becoming another tech product sitting idle.

What inspired the team to start this company?

It was the frustration of seeing how hard it was to access simple, transactional information. Not even complex data, just basic stuff that’s stuck in systems and hard to extract. I don’t want to hear that someone in a carrier couldn’t make an important decision because they couldn’t access the right data quickly. That should be a thing of the past.

Can you share any goal(s) for the next 12 months?

By the time I attend the next Insurtech New York conference, I want everyone to know who DataHaven is. Even if they’re not our customers, I want them to understand what we’re doing and how we’re changing access to information. I also want to have helped a number of carriers by then, building momentum that will compound in the years ahead.

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