Bringing Financial Security to Millions by Redefining how Individual Insurance is Bought and Sold

Last month, in our portfolio company profile series, we wrote about Dialogue, our first portfolio company, who just raised a $40 million Series B. This month, we’re turning our focus to one of our more recent companies, Breathe Life, which is moving at warp speed. In the last 8 months, Breathe Life has announced a partnership with National Bank Insurance, raised a $4.5 million seed round, doubled its team to 28 people and announced a partnership with La Capitale.

Breathe Life was founded in late 2017 with the goal of bringing financial security to all by redefining the way life insurance is bought and sold. It was co-founded by Ian Jeffrey, Jean-Nicholas Hould, Sébastien Malherbe and Arach Tchoupani. All four are experienced entrepreneurs who have launched and scaled startups in Montreal, New York, and Silicon Valley. At Diagram, it is part of our mission to find passionate entrepreneurs who can rally experienced founding teams around them. This is perfectly exemplified with the Breathe Life founders’ extensive experience in everything from engineering to product and design to data and marketing.

Breathe Life is building a consumer-centric digital transformation platform that is changing how individual insurance is bought and sold through solutions ranging from self-service to advisor enabled.

On the self-serve end of the spectrum, distribution organizations can sell life insurance directly online. Within a few minutes, consumers can get a quote, apply and get a decision. In addition, they can communicate with an advisor via phone if they have questions or are stuck along the way. On the other end, Breathe Life provides advisors with a digital insurance platform to give them the capability to submit and manage more complicated policies online. Advisors are crucial in the individual insurance industry and Breathe Life is there to not only enable them but to free up more of their time to do what they do best, work directly with clients.

Powering these experiences are the Marketing and Data & AI layers which help distribution organizations target and understand consumers, and fundamentally change the underlying foundations of individual insurance through the lens of consumers. Breathe Life has partnered with carriers and distribution organizations to help them move from the lengthy processes they have been using for decades to a streamlined digital experience.

The idea for Breathe Life came to our innovation team while they were examining the life insurance market. It was obvious that there was a significant gap between life insurance needs and actual coverage for both Canadian and US citizens. As mentioned above, the existing life insurance process was one that had remained largely unchanged since its inception. It is cumbersome, intrusive and time-consuming, all of which are significant inhibitors to adoption.

We wanted to find a way to solve this distribution problem through technology.

In our research, it became clear that life insurance purchases are triggered by certain life events and that distributors need digital platforms so that they can reach potential clients at the right time with the right coverage. This initial idea was taken by the Breathe Life founders and developed into what it is today – a digital transformation platform that is enabling the individual insurance industry to succeed.

Once the founders had taken the idea and ran with it, Diagram’s primary role became facilitating strategic introductions to several top executives and CEOs of the largest insurance and reinsurance providers. It would have been very difficult for a young startup to get that visibility under normal circumstances. As a Diagram Portfolio company, they benefit from our support to minimize risk and speed up their success.

The future of Breathe Life is promising. Keep an eye on them as they announce several more partners over the coming months, including their first American one. If you’d like to help Breathe Life achieve their mission of bringing financial security to all, whoever and wherever they are, check out their jobs board. They are always on the hunt for amazing people to join their team.