Fresh off a new funding round, a local company is looking not only to expand, but to also help out those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and future disasters.
Dallas-based digital life insurance platform Bestow announced the completion of a $50 million Series B round led by Valar Ventures. Existing investors New Enterprise Associates, Morpheus Ventures and Core Innovation Capital, along with new investor Sammons Financial, joined the round. The funding brings Bestow’s total to $67.5 million, according to Crunchbase.
And one of the first moves following the funding for the startup is to launch The Bestow Foundation, a financial support nonprofit.
“Providing a positive social impact is central to why we founded Bestow. We established a foundation early on to assist those who are affected by loss of life,” said Melbourne O’Banion, co-founder and CEO at Bestow, in a prepared statement. “Now is the right time for our foundation’s inaugural donation in support of those on the frontline helping through this crisis.”
Bestow was founded in 2016 by O’Banion and Jonathan Abelmann, who also serves as the company’s president. The startup landed its $2.5 million Seed round in 2017 and has about 80 employees, according to LinkedIn.
The Bestow Foundation’s mission is to “directly assist families who lose an income earner due to a crisis or natural disaster,” as well as raise awareness about life insurance. One of the first initiatives for the nonprofit will be to donate to the CDC Foundation, which helps fund medical supplies, increase the staffing and efficiency of health care facilities and support vulnerable communities, among other things.
Bestow said it sees the foundation as an extension of its goal of helping people get life insurance. O’Banion said they chose the CDC Foundation as support for frontline health care workers in increasingly important. The Bestow Foundation is currently planning other initiatives and way to provide financial support to those in need.
In addition to the launch of The Bestow Foundation, the startup is planning to expand nationwide.
“Insurance is by definition a preventative product and leveraging technology to democratize access to financial protection is social empowerment,” Abelmann said in a prepared statement. “We aim to help ensure that every life is protected and valued, especially in the face of the unexpected. That’s why the foundation is so complementary to our mission.”
