Life insurance startup Breathe Life secures $11.5 million CAD

Montreal-backed Breathe Life , an enterprise SaaS platform provider for the life insurance industry, announced it has secured $11.5 million CAD in funding. The $6.5 million Series A was co-led by Real Ventures & Investissement Québec with participation from Clocktower Technology Ventures, Cameron Ventures, Desjardins, NAventures, and Diagram Ventures. The remaining $5 million is made up of a $4.2 million debt financing from the National Bank of Canada’s Technology and Innovation Banking Group and various government grants.

Founded in 2017, Breathe Life is a team of approximately 38 people. It provides insurers a platform for the distribution of life insurance products that increases sales and speed of policy delivery while reducing operational costs. Breathe Life enables carriers to quickly deliver a fully-branded, user-centric experience that streamlines the online buying process for consumers.

“Everything that has happened this momentous year has raised the stakes for carriers, forcing them to quickly and effectively modernize their operations to meet the pressing financial-security needs of billions of consumers worldwide. Helping consumers engage online — and making it easy for advisors to help them there — is no longer a ‘nice to have,’ but an urgent requirement of the new normal. Breathe Life is empowering carriers to transform now. Using our digital distribution platform, carriers can quickly attract, service, and win new business cost-effectively across channels.” – Ian Jeffrey, CEO of Breathe Life.

“Until recently, the insurance industry has approached digital transformation as a multi-year effort. If the last six months have taught the industry anything, it’s that the time to go digital is now. Breathe Life has a proven track record helping carriers across North America quickly deliver high-quality digital experiences to  consumers that drive growth while also generating valuable, data-driven insights back to the business.” – John Stokes, Partner at Real Ventures.