Melbourne O’Banion co-founded in 2017 with Jonathan Abelman after struggling to secure his own life insurance.
His goal was to make life insurance easier and make the process more technically compatible.
Initially it operated as a direct insurance provider from the grantor to the consumer – the service of life insurance sales, underwriting and services. In the first few years, the startups processed over a million applications. As traditional health checks were suspended, its non-exam underwriting platform gained traction during the Covid pandemic. As you grow your D2C business, you will be awarded with parallel development software that will help you modernize the entire process.
Recognizing the value of the software, the award sold the insurance company and consumer business to Summons Financial Group for a private amount. As these companies become “more digital,” they switched their focus to deliver software and services to other life insurance companies so that they can serve their customers more efficiently.
Also on Tuesday, the Dallas-based company announced it had raised $120 million in Series D funding to launch new products and underwriting capabilities. The funding that O’Banion described as “oversubscribe” was a mixture of $75 million and $45 million in the primary.
Growth equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Smith Point Capital at Ex-Salesforce Co-CEITH Block co-led the investment. In addition to stock financing, the award also secured a $50 million credit facility from TriplePoint Capital. O’Banion refused to reveal Bestow’s rating, noting that it has “almost doubled” since raising $70 million in the Series C round in December 2020.
O’Banion also refused to reveal the tough revenue figures, stating that BESTOW’s annual recurring revenue tripled in 2024, and an “10x” increase over the past two years. Its revenue models are enterprise As-a-Service (Software As-a-Service) and performance-based. The majority of revenue comes from royalties.
Ashwin Gupta, a partner in the growth equity team at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, told TechCrunch that he was drawn to helping with awards for several reasons. For one, its founder was a recurring founder who “pivoted the business successfully.” (Melbourne also co-founded Beautybio and is a founding member of the Presidio title. Abelman co-founded the public invitation house.)
Gupta also believes the SaaS model gives it an edge over its more legacy competitors.
“The lessons have an attractive market that is large, resilient and relatively underserved by modern technology,” he said. Gupta, who is on the class board as part of his fundraising, said he was impressed with his ability to attract several large customers, expanding the use of the platform.
Its customers include National, Transamerica, USAA, Sammons Financial Group, and Equitable.
Other supporters include Breyer Capital, Valar Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Core Innovation Ventures, Morpheus Ventures, and Sammons Financial.
With 167 employees, BASTOW currently operates in the US and is considering expanding internationally.
Source link
