Insurtech startup iLife Technologies has raised $17 million in Series A funding from Foundation Capital and insurance industry leaders, the company tells Axios exclusively.
Why it matters: After a correction in the direct-to-consumer insurtech market, investors are backing more startups that are building software tools for agents and carriers.
Driving the news: iLife raised new funding from existing investor Foundation Capital, along with strategic investors Brewer Lane Ventures and SCOR Ventures.
- Brewer Lane was founded by John Kim, who previously served as president and chief investment officer of New York Life, while SCOR Ventures is the investment arm of global reinsurer firm SCOR.
How it works: iLife built a SaaS platform that enables insurance agents to facilitate the process of selling life insurance.
- Rather than using multiple pieces of software to manage sales and marketing workflows, it offers a single front-end experience to communicate with clients, provide quotes from multiple carriers and generate electronic applications.
Between the lines: iLife founder and CEO Nelson Lee started working on the company after trying to build a consumer-facing brokerage business where he learned insurance agent pain points firsthand.
- “I realized in my first startup experience that being an insurance agent is really hard because there are broken tools offered by tens of carriers. You have to piece together 19 different pieces of software to make it work,” Lee says.
By the numbers: Since launching in 2021, iLife has expanded the number of carriers it works with from two to 27, giving insurance clients a wide portfolio of insurance policies to choose from.
- It has signed up more than 11,000 agents, who pay a monthly fee for access to its SaaS platform, and is expanding into enterprise sales for major insurance agencies and carriers.
Of note: GTMFund and OpenView Partners also participated in the Series A round.
- Altogether, the company has raised $21 million in funding from fintech and insurtech investors.
