Breathe Life gets $3.5m funding for insurance sparkle
Insurtech Breathe Life is breathless with excitement as it has raised CA$4.5 million ($3.5 million) in a seed round led by Diagram Ventures with participation from Real Ventures.
Cents for the scent of insurance
It doesn’t say what the funding will be used for, but the Montreal-based firm provides solutions to life and health carriers, distribution organisations, and advisors with white-label solutions.
It doesn’t go into specifics, but a look at its website reveals that its solutions include digitised life insurance workflow, digital marketing insights and digitalised broker sales.
“The life insurance industry faces distribution challenges as more consumers expect a fast and seamless digital buying experience,” says Ian Jeffrey, co-founder and CEO at Breathe Life. “At the same time, the opportunity for providers to target and engage with consumers on their own terms has never been greater.”
He adds: “Breathe Life helps distributors tap into vast and underserved markets with digital solutions that make it more efficient and cost-effective both to find and acquire new customers and nurture existing ones.”
The firm points to changing consumer buying habits – especially among millennials – that have contributed to the “widening gap” between providers and potential customers.
It wants to bridge this by modernising how companies distribute their products – both directly and through their advisor networks.
In one year of operation, Breathe Life says its model has gained “significant traction” with insurance providers.
For example, customer and investor, National Bank, saw an 18% increase in sales and a 26% increase in first-year premiums while decreasing the cost of customer acquisition by 33% – in “just 13 weeks of using Breathe Life”.
The firm was founded by Arach Tchoupani, Jean-Nicholas Hould, Sébastien Malherbe, and Jeffrey. They have experience of launching and operating technology companies in Canada, Silicon Valley and New York City.
