Started as a 'Project'...Now We're Here: Announcing Boost's $20M Series B

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Boost News Insurance Industry

By Alex Maffeo on May 20, 2021

8 min read

So...you wanted more blogs, huh?

Pretty soon, I’ll be relegated to being one of those perma-blogger/Twitter founders in order to add some value around here, so I’d better step up my blog game. The good news is that it’s been well over a year since my last post, and that was an absolutely insane year, so it’s well past time for about 2,000 words of catching up.

To those of you who asked for more blogs, just remember that you literally asked for this. To those of you who don’t care, feel free to read something even more clickbait-y.

Sure, I could take that personally...but why bother? ;)

TL;DR...

$20M Series B led by RRE Ventures with FinVC, an amazing global reinsurer we couldn’t announce publicly (mysterious, huh?), and a few other new and friendly faces (Press Release!)
>10x customer growth (Join Us!), 6+ proprietary products (Products!), and the best API platform in the game (API Docs!)
How a ‘Project Boost’ PowerPoint transformed into a leading fintech (Spoiler: Our Team!)
More capital means more fuel for our mission – to not just improve the way insurance is purchased by consumers but to fundamentally change how assets and risks are transferred across the insurance marketplace

Now, let’s get started...

What a difference a year or two makes, huh?

Boy, does it feel good to say this…

Today, I’m thrilled to announce the close of Boost’s $20M Series B, led by RRE Ventures with participation from FinVC, Gaingels, Hack VC, along with a strategic investment from a leading global reinsurer (bet you wanna know, huh?). I couldn’t be happier to welcome this group to the party, and we’re all incredibly grateful for the continued support from our longtime partners Greycroft, Coatue, Conversion Capital, and MetLife’s Chairman Glenn Hubbard.

Not only is that a Murderers’ Row of a cap table, but these investors also don’t just express their conviction about their investments - they actually work to help build and grow their portfolio companies. Like, for real. It’s awesome.

30+ employees, dozens of amazing insurtech and embedded partners, a tech platform that has expanded almost as fast as my BMI during Covid. Now, to top it all off, a $20M Series B with a group of amazing investors to give Boost one heck of a…boost (okay, I know, that was terrible).

Wait, back up, who is Boost and what do you do?

We make it simple for any company to build, launch, and manage insurance programs, and then offer those solutions to their customers through a fully embedded digital experience. Boost follows in the footsteps of companies like Plaid, Affirm, and my personal favorite Marqeta.[1]

Back when they were getting started (call it 2010-2015), these now-Goliath fintech leaders were transforming the fintech landscape by providing picks and shovels for innovative companies across all segments. We now recognize what they were creating as “Fintech Infrastructure” or “X-as-a-Service” or “Embedded Finance.” That approach will drive significant value to insurance as well – and that’s where Boost lives.

Boost’s platform is built to power this fintech revolution for insurance. We’re the picks and shovels of insurtech, we live in the background of our clients' businesses, and we like it that way. If you want to learn more about Boost, you can get familiar with our company here , our API here, or just reach out here.

…or, just read on for some more hot air from its founder. Your pick.

Okay, first things first, Boost would still be a ‘Project’ without this incredible team…

As I said, there are now 30+ incredibly talented people building this Boost machine – and we are on track to at least double that number over the next 12 months. That’s a surreal thing to be part of, and holy hell, is it exciting. Our team is one of the few things that I’ll shamelessly take some credit for, because helping with its assembly, development, and growth is my proudest professional achievement – like, by a mile.

By far, the most instrumental part of Boost’s success has been the people (way smarter than me) who’ve jumped in to build what was effectively a fever dream. And they’re not crazy, they’re confident. The people I have the privilege of working with every day at Boost are at the top of their respective fields, and they’ve traded comfort and security for this extreme challenge because they want to build something special, and they know that something special is Boost.

Even I’m not crazy enough to diminish how risky that decision was for all of them and their families. Holding up my end of the bargain for my team is the only thing that ever keeps me up at night. I’m eternally grateful to each and every one of them.

That’s why today’s announcement and any celebration around it isn’t about me, or our investors, or any APIs or buzzwords – it’s about this incredible group of people on the Boost team who have literally built Boost from the ground up, day in and day out, for nearly five years now.

Today isn’t just about them. It’s because of them. They’re the ones who built this and they did it all the hard way – because it was the right way…

Let me tell ya, building this the hard way was REALLY painful in the early days – but boy is it paying off now…

Over the last 18 months, Boost has transformed in such a massive way, and it has been absolutely incredible watching this team execute. Not too long ago, we were still mostly an early-stage startup with a huge idea, on a mission that was still just “a little early” for many of the VCs we met.

Two key components of our strategy at Boost were intentionally contrarian (ill-advised?) relative to the unofficial ‘startup playbook’ best practices. First, we went with the dreaded ‘horizontal’ (unfocused?) platform model and are stubbornly committed to that. Second, we took a slow and bottoms-up (unscalable?) approach with our go-to-market plan, which started by addressing an equally ‘risky’ or ‘a bit too early’ insurtech startup market to boot.

But despite skeptics, our team firmly believes in our long-term plan, and I’m incredibly proud that we’ve resisted countless urges to rush it or take shortcuts. It was so hard (dumb?) that it damn near killed us twice, but you know what?

Totally worth it.

Since then, we’ve been honored to play a small role in dozens of other startups’ journeys as they build, launch, and scale meaningful insurance businesses on our platform. We work tirelessly to do one thing: make it simple for our partners to shake things up in their businesses, and we’re firmly committed to our role as their picks and shovels.

Doing so allows them to focus on the important stuff, like providing superior insurance products and delivering them through experiences that the modern consumer deserves - and that’s what matters.

Progress is never a straight line, but jeez, it’s been one heck of a ride already…

Everyone knows that working at a startup is like living a movie in fast forward, so it’s already been one hell of a journey for the Boost Squad. Closing our Series B after such an insane year is an awesome milestone for a lot of reasons, but I for one am glad that it means we can finally look back at some of the things we’ve been through together and laugh.

You know, things like...

The Ugly

Our original logo was clearly just a blue Beats by Dre logo

(Thanks, freelance design platform...I want my $200 back!)

Back when we almost called the company a “virtual carrier”

(Fun fact: that was a dumb idea. Thanks, regulatory counsel!)

Our randomly orange and purple website, the two grossest colors in the history of colors

(which is a universal truth and indisputable fact!)

The Bad

That time we looked each other in the eyes and made a really hard decision, one that would sacrifice a whole lot of short-term value in the interest of the long-term mission

…and did it together with the utmost trust and confidence in each other

...during a global pandemic

…in the midst of black swan-level macroeconomic uncertainty

…while teaching me how to use Zoom

(that wasn’t fun, but it feels like one heck of a special moment now)

The Good

Then there was the period after that hard decision when we all buckled down and proceeded to 10x the company in nine months

...swatting away all of the external headwinds and attacks that came our way

...because why not get all the hard stuff out of the way early – just to be sure, right?

And, finally, now a $20M Series B to put a bow on that horrible yet incredible experience

…that we got through together

…not just to survive, but to thrive with momentum that can’t be stopped.

That last one brought me back to the days when we were in the “sweatbox” that we called home on Day 1. It was yet another reminder about why I’d gladly run through any wall or take any bullet for this team. And always will.

So now, everyone please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle…

Today, Boost is quickly transforming into the machine that we dreamed of building, and its engine is humming louder and faster every day. We’re at that stage where you find yourself thinking “okay...I should probably be a little scared now, but it’s working so let’s just keep going.” Luckily, none of our investors or commercial partners want to slow down either. I’m pretty sure we forgot to install a brake pedal in the first place - and this capital is even more fuel for the machine.

The machine that is Boost has 10x’ed its customer base over the last few months, has launched six proprietary products (and counting) which are available through its full-feature policy admin API platform, and is consistently doubling every major financial KPI.

Plus, we get to work with some of the most innovative companies in the world – startups and enterprises alike – every single day. How awesome is that?

Like any startup, we’ve basically lived five lifetimes over the last five-ish years. There have been countless super high-highs and plenty of super low-lows, but it’s been incredible to watch our team work together to navigate it all, every step of the way. The lows are always hard, but we’ve always been hard to kill, and the highs can be fleeting – but it’s starting to feel like we’re getting pretty damn close to unstoppable.

I can’t wait for what’s next.

So, time to get back to work – but before we go...

For anyone crazy enough to have read this far and eager for more, we look forward to welcoming you into the Boost family. Join us as a Boost MGA partner (Get Started), a reinsurer (Contact Us), a member of the team (We’re hiring…a lot!), or as a friend of the company (Follow us on social)

Today, we’re going to celebrate in true Boost fashion – with a nice mix of aggressively unapologetic enthusiasm and gratitude for everyone that supports us...and maybe, just maybe, even a few drinks.

Tomorrow, we’ll wake up, dust ourselves off, and refocus – locked, loaded, and as always, just a little bit dangerous.

We have a ton of work to do, but we plan to keep that party going strong for a very, very long time.

Bring it on.

[1] Humblebrag Disclosure: I helped lead Marqeta’s Series C back in 2015 when I was still a VC. They were (and still are) one of the biggest inspirations for Boost. Such a kickass company all around.

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Ready for Liftoff: BHMS Backs Boost

Jul 31, 2024

Friends of Boost, Today Boost is thrilled to announce that we have secured a significant equity investment from BHMS Investments, setting the stage for an incredibly exciting next phase for this company and the amazing team that has built it brick-by-brick over the past seven years. With a rock-solid foundation firmly in place, this partnership is going to supercharge our growth, fuel more innovation, and cement Boost’s position as the go-to infrastructure platform in insurance. We are on a mission to empower MGAs, insurtechs, independent brokers and agents, wholesalers, embedded insurance providers, and really any company that just wants to build, transact, and operate more efficiently in this technology-enabled world of ours. While capital is great, today is about hard-earned validation for our team doing that the right way since Day 1. BHMS is the perfect capital partner for Boost in terms of their insurance expertise and unquestionable track record in the space, but more importantly, they are fantastic people that share both our views on the industry and our principles of company building. The market is dangerously fixed for early and growth stage companies right now (and I say “fixed” intentionally). It’s incredibly easy to get picked off in an environment like that, so it takes a rare mix of both intellect and character to do the right thing when you’re on the capital side of that equation - and even more to be truly value-add to your portfolio companies. BHMS has that mix in spades and appreciated Boost for what it is, what it has accomplished, and what remains an incredibly high ceiling for this company vs. playing short-term charades with the herd. That’s our kind of investor. This investment isn’t just about the money—it's a resounding endorsement of Boost’s strength, credibility, and potential to make a truly meaningful impact on the insurance industry at scale. With BHMS now on board, alongside an incredible group of long-time strategic backers like Markel, RenaissanceRe, and Canopius, we’re ready to take our game to the next level. Our mission has always been to disrupt the insurance space with cutting-edge tech and unparalleled service, and this backing proves that disrupting responsibly is the only approach that works in our industry. Anyone can grow fast if they don’t care about quality or long-term credibility. At Boost, we underwrite profitably, we respect compliance, and we always - always - take a collaborative approach with our stakeholders across the entire value chain. As someone with literally zero patience, I can personally attest to that being incredibly difficult to do at times - but it scales. Even with the market’s ups and downs, Boost has been a powerhouse of innovation in the insurtech landscape with equal commitment to disruption and reliability. Doing things the right way does not mean you cannot innovate - or even disrupt - and leveraging best-in-class technology is not a right reserved for #insurtechs. Our platform has always been a one-stop shop for insurtechs and embedded insurance providers and MGAs, independent agents and brokers, and wholesalers alike - offering everything from product development to underwriting and program management to claims administration and reinsurance capacity. With our proprietary tech and a dream team of industry pros, we’re delivering smarter, more efficient solutions than ever before. Since our first program launched in 2019, we’ve underwritten over $200 billion in coverage, which is a somewhat staggering figure in hindsight. Today we’re proud to support programs for giants like Amwins along with trailblazers like Cowbell, Newfront, and Wagmo, and we’re grateful for all of the companies that chose to build with Boost even when Boost itself was just getting started. Our steady, disciplined approach has kept our portfolio profitable and we like to think that has kept our partners in front of us very happy as well. All of Boost’s success is thanks to what is hands down the best team in the industry. Hard stop. Their grit, dedication, and willingness to tackle tough challenges head-on has been crucial. Boost’s commitment to quality starts with our team and is reflected in them every single day. We keep things lean at Boost because that quality always outperforms quantity. Even if that approach always requires more from each individual and makes the stakes a bit higher, working with the right people makes the returns on each long hour invested that much more gratifying. Few people exemplify those principles or have demonstrated such an unwavering commitment to Boost more than Jeremy Deitch, so I am also thrilled to announce that Jeremy has been promoted to President at Boost and will join me on our Board of Directors. Jeremy’s leadership has been critical since the day he started at Boost almost 6 years ago, following probably the most grueling interview process in our company’s history - one he is always happy to dramatize even more if you ever ask him. ;) I couldn’t be more grateful to have a partner like him as Boost soars to new heights. With this new investment, we’re geared up to boost (pun intended) our growth and expand our tech offerings. We’re planning to scale our MGA programs, roll out new products, and snap up some strategic acquisitions. Our goal? To make building a business in insurance easier, faster, and more efficient for everyone so they can better serve their customers. We’re more fired up than ever about our mission to empower insurance providers with the tech and infrastructure they need to thrive. This partnership with BHMS is just the beginning. The future is bright, and we’re ready to lead the charge. Thank you to everyone who has been part of our journey thus far. Let's all keep pushing boundaries together - because the best is yet to come. Special thanks to the team at Howden Capital Markets & Advisory for helping Boost always say what it’ll do and do what it says. You can find our full press release here and, more importantly, can start joining our platform here. All my best, Alex Maffeo CEO & Founder Boost Insurance

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What is a Cell Captive?

May 23, 2024

A captive is an insurance entity that a business creates, rents, or owns in order to self-insure risks. A cell captive, sometimes also called a protected cell captive or segregated cell captive, is a specific insurance captive structure that allows an entity to segment or separate business in one cell from that in another cell, so that a particular cell’s assets and liabilities are insulated from anything that happens in another cell (even if both cells are part of the same overall captive facility). Using captives to self-insure risk offers businesses a number of benefits: they can participate in some or all of their program’s underwriting profitability, maintain end-to-end control over risk (including pricing and claims handling), and avoid paying significant overhead fees to a “middleman” insurer. Companies have several options for structuring and utilizing an insurance captive. They might build a single-parent captive, pool risk in a group captive, or make use of a cell captive. In this blog, we’ll take a look at each. In a single-parent captive, a company will often partner with a fronting carrier to reinsure at least part of their own risk. These are most commonly used by very large companies with exposure to multiple lines of business, which they can insure through the same captive entity. Example: A national food-delivery business wants to provide insurance to its restaurant partners, to protect against the risk of lawsuits related to food safety for meals delivered through the service. It discusses partnerships with several major insurance carriers, but none are willing to provide the level of coverage that the business is looking for at a reasonable price. To get what it needs, the food-delivery business sets up a captive to reinsure a fronting carrier partner, enabling the business to insure its own risk and provide the coverage it needs to its restaurant partners. Setting up a single-parent captive is a considerable undertaking with high capital requirements and a complex setup, with significant ongoing operational requirements going forward. In order to make sense financially, it usually requires a high volume of premium. For that reason, this option is usually only viable for very large businesses. For businesses that can’t afford (either in time or in money) to set up their own captive, a second option is to partner with other businesses in a related industry to set up a group captive. In this scenario, a single captive maintains portfolio capacity that can be shared by a group of entities. The entities can then pool risk together in the single captive. Example: Several real estate companies form a partnership to share a group captive to pool their similar risks. Each company contributes a certain amount of capital to fund the captive, and the capacity is shared among the partners. The participating real estate firms are then able to leverage the captive’s capacity to exercise greater control over their risk, and avoid paying high fees to middlemen. This can allow the partner businesses to share risk (and benefits) between them, and works well for trade associations and other groups of companies in related industries, that share similar risks. However, since the fund is shared between partners as well, one partner’s negative returns can impact the other partners involved. In a cell captive, the business first sets up an entity called a core, which is a similar process to setting up a single-parent captive. Once the core entity is complete, however, the business can much more easily spin up additional cells within the captive structure. The financials for those individual cells are separate from each other, rather than the combined funding of a single-parent or group captive. For many companies, however, using a cell captive doesn’t mean building one themselves. While there are use cases for single-parent cell captives, most businesses that create them then rent out cells to other businesses. Using a cell in another company’s captive entity (also called captive-as-a-service) allows a business to reap the benefits of an insurance captive at a much lower cost. We’ll look at some examples in the next section. The first step in creating a cell captive is to create the “Core” entity. This process is similar to building a single-parent captive: Once the core captive entity has been created and adequately funded, the owner can spin up individual cells within the captive’s structure to support different lines of business, segments, or partners. The Department of Insurance will still need to approve all new cells, but the process is much more streamlined than in prior cases. New cells can often be set up in weeks instead of the months or years typically needed for entirely new captive entities. Captive cells’ assets and liabilities are then statutorily protected from each other (which is where the ‘protected cell captive’ name comes from). This means that if one cell has a difficult year and experiences significant underwriting loss, the assets of the neighboring cells can’t be used to fund that loss. There are multiple ways that cell captives are used, including offering captive-as-a-service (also called rent-a-captive) to other partners or businesses, and separating different parts of the parent company’s business for performance tracking. In a captive-as-a-service or rent-a-captive scenario, the company that owns the captive core would allow other businesses to use cells in its captive. For a fee, the owner can set up a new cell specifically for the partner business, and manage it on their behalf. This lets the partner business leverage the owner’s infrastructure to achieve many of the same benefits of a single-parent captive, without the cost and complexity of creating one. Example: An insurtech specializing in commercial insurance has built a very strong customer base, and wants to further grow its business by participating in some of its own risk. However, building a full captive is too resource-intensive for the insurtech to take on. Instead, the insurtech partners with a CaaS provider and rents a captive cell. The insurtech then uses the cell to self-insure some of its risks, enabling it to participate in the underwriting returns and further scale towards a full-stack insurance business. While the most common reason for building a cell captive is to rent out cells to other businesses, there are a few reasons a company might build one for its own use. Because the cells’ financials are statutorily separated from each other, a cell captive allows a large enterprise to delineate between different lines of business or geographic regions, and monitor their performance separately. Example: A nationwide property management company offers several insurance products to its customers to help protect their personal property and finances. For planning and budgeting purposes, each line is supported by an individual cell in the management company’s cell captive. Over the course of the fiscal year, several lines perform over their targets, while one line significantly underperforms. The other LOBs’ budgets are unaffected by the low-performing LOB’s losses, and the company has clear visibility into which of its products are doing well and which may need a course correction. Cell captives provide a number of benefits to both their owners and the end users: Cell captives are popular for a reason: they offer significant value to both the companies with the resources to build them, and the companies that would rather rent a cell than build a single-parent entity from scratch. To learn more about Captive-as-a-Service with Boost, contact us.

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Partnerships and Focus: Big Trends at Money20/20

Nov 3, 2021

It was a busy October for the team at Boost Insurance, wrapping up with one of our favorite industry events: Money20/20. The conference was a super interesting contrast to ITC which was laser-focused on insurance, while Money 20/20 was more about fintech in general and much, much bigger! With fintech about ten years ahead of insurtech in terms of maturity, it’s interesting to see the level of innovation and diversity of companies in our big brother industry. Here are some of the big trends we noticed. One of the really interesting trends that kept being repeated at Money20/20 was a shift in mindset among both fintechs and banks. In the past, they have tended to see each other as competition for consumers’ business and attention but now everyone is moving towards viewing each other as complementary vs. competitive. We saw multiple collaborative efforts between the upstarts and the established, working together to create a better customer experience. This works because they each have a specialization (fintechs excel at meeting modern consumer expectations and banks are experts in profitably navigating a very regulated, very complex business), and partnership lets them bring both those strengths to the table. This was extra interesting to us at Boost because it reflects what we see in insurance, with insurtechs and carriers working together and bringing their own strengths together to meet modern consumer needs and expectations. For example - Boost has built a modern tech platform making various insurance products available via API but partners with established reinsurance companies to facilitate risk transfer. There will still be winners and losers between the incumbents and the upstarts, but as collaboration and competition continue consumers will be the clear winners. A trend I’ve written about before, and one that we continue to see play out, is tech companies’ focus on affinity groups. Fintechs are springing up all over with explicit goals of serving a relatively narrow group of people and serving them well. Companies like Paceline for people focused on health and wellness, Daylight for the LGBTQ+ community, and First Boulevard for African-Americans are just some of the fintechs concentrating on being the best option for a specific set of consumers. This is pretty much the opposite of traditional one-size-fits-all programs - instead of creating something broad that can be good enough for the biggest slice of people, creating something very targeted that can be great for a specific niche. This trend is great news for consumers who traditionally have not been served well by financial services in general. At Boost we’re starting to work with more affinity-focused companies because our modular, customizable product structure allows partners to tailor insurance for their customer needs. It’s exciting to be part of making insurance more accessible to all groups of people! Finally, it was really exciting and validating to see so much interest in new approaches to traditional industries. Finance and insurance have historically had a reputation for being very slow to change, sometimes for good reason (highly regulated, handling people’s money is a big responsibility, etc). This year though there’s a ton of interest in potential innovations, look no further than the enormous presence of blockchain and crypto-focused companies at Money20/20! Boost met with a TON of different companies during the show, and we cannot talk about anything yet but be on the lookout for some very interesting things coming in the near future! Money2020 was a heck of a conference and while my conference year is wrapped, the Boost team will be out and about at shows the rest of the year. We are looking forward to more opportunities to meet people in 2022, so if you did not get a chance to connect with us at Money2020, just drop us a line.