In the Press

Apollo, Northwestern Mutual, Pantera Capital and Stillmark are joining Bain Capital and crypto investor Haun Ventures to back the Bitcoin life insurance firm Meanwhile in a $82 million funding round.

The Bermuda-regulated insurer, which claims to be the first life insurer to offer products entirely denominated in crypto, began to provide policies in 2023. The firm invests policyholders' premiums by lending Bitcoin to large, regulated financial institutions. Zac Townsend, a co-founder and chief executive officer of Meanwhile, said the firm is now "one of the largest lenders of Bitcoin in the world at duration," or over longer periods of time.

When Zac Townsend and Max Gasner began talking about a new venture in late 2021, the cryptocurrency world was already a hotbed of innovation. Exchanges, payment networks, and digital wallets were evolving quickly—but one foundational pillar of financial services remained untouched: life insurance. It was in that gap that the co-founders saw an opportunity. What if they could adapt one of the oldest and most trusted financial products for the Bitcoin economy?

Last week, Meanwhile announced a whopping $40 million raise co-led by Framework Ventures and Fulgur Ventures.

However, the raise is a bit more significant than was initially reported.

"This is the largest equity investment that Framework Ventures has ever made," Framework's Michael Anderson exclusively told me.

Bitcoin could offer captive insurers a valuable tool to preserve the value of reserves in high-inflation environments, according to Meanwhile co-founder and CEO Zac Townsend, following the firm's US$40 million Series A funding round.

Meanwhile secured the investment in a round led by Framework Ventures and Fulgur Ventures, with participation from Xapo founder Wences Casares. It builds on US$20.5 million in earlier seed funding backed by OpenAI's Sam Altman and Mouro Capital.

Traditional life insurance pays out in fiat currencies. Meanwhile flips this model, keeping premiums and benefits in bitcoin, aiming to help policyholders guard against inflation and currency devaluation. In countries where local currencies lose value, holding policies in BTC could help preserve purchasing power for future payouts. However, policyholders also take on bitcoin's price volatility.

Townsend says life insurance is integral to any functioning society because it protects families from financial devastation in the event of an untimely death. But while most life insurance policies use dollars or another type of fiat-currency, Meanwhile operates in Bitcoin in an attempt to maximize returns and limit the risk of inflation over the course of a client's lifetime, he said.

"It may feel like the dollar is not as sure a store of value as it might have been in the past," Townsend says, highlighting that inflation decreases the value of the dollar over time. "So the idea of storing some value for your kids… in this global, censorship-resistant, decentralized, uncontrollable currency in Bitcoin is very attractive."

Based in Bermuda, Meanwhile offers a "BTC Whole Life" insurance product, which is a "whole life" insurance plan based in bitcoin. A whole life insurance policy covers an individual's entire life until death and builds cash value over time as long as the policy's premiums are continually paid.

"Our mission is to bring fundamental financial services — like life insurance and annuities — to this new economy," Meanwhile CEO Zac Townsend said in a statement. "People living in regions experiencing high inflation or currency instability can significantly benefit from insurance policies that preserve their wealth and purchasing power. Even in the United States, the dollar has lost about 25% of its value over the past five years, highlighting the universal need for inflation-proof financial products."

Bitcoin-denominated life insurance is a new concept that allows an individual to pay their life insurance premiums in bitcoin and borrow against their BTC-denominated policy tax-free, with the policy paying out more, stepped-up cost basis bitcoin at death to the beneficiaries. If a policy is owned individually, the death benefit pays out into the estate and, therefore, can be subject to estate tax.

Bitcoin is typically viewed as a low time preference asset, meaning its holders (or, HODLers) tend to be long-term investors rather than traders; this, coupled with its meteoric rise and potential future price appreciation, makes it an important asset to plan for potential estate taxes. Advisors and individuals should consider one or a combination of these strategies to optimize bitcoin-related tax planning.

Meanwhile, a life insurer operating solely in Bitcoin, has secured regulatory approval from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) for a long-term commercial licence after graduating from the innovation sandbox.

According to the firm, Meanwhile Insurance Bitcoin, the company's operating subsidiary, is the first business to ever receive the Class IILT licence from the BMA and the only life insurer in the world that operates entirely in Bitcoin.

A Bermudian-based insurance company that operates entirely in bitcoin has become the first to receive a Class IILT licence from the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

Meanwhile Insurance Bitcoin (Bermuda) Ltd, a subsidiary of the Delaware-headquartered Meanwhile group, has graduated from the BMA's innovation sandbox and is now a fully licensed long-term insurer.

Joining Meanwhile as INEDs are reinsurance industry veteran Jason Carne, HSCM Bermuda executive Gokul Sudarsana and Sandra DeSilva, chief executive of Mythen Re and CEO and chief software architect of Nova Ltd.

The authorisation means Meanwhile's operating subsidiary, Meanwhile Insurance Bitcoin (Bermuda) Limited, is now a fully licensed long-term insurer and is the first company to ever receive the Class IILT Licence from the BMA, and the only life insurer anywhere in the world that operates entirely in Bitcoin (BTC).

"This approval validates our innovative approach to life insurance and marks a significant milestone in our mission—allowing us to credibly make promises to our policyholders for decades to come," said Zac Townsend, Meanwhile co-founder and CEO. "We are excited to continue innovating within the life insurance industry to bring solutions to the millions of participants in the digital asset economy."

For Bitcoinization to take place, bitcoin must infiltrate traditional finance. It's a fact that many Bitcoiners are uncomfortable with, but it's true. Most people don't want to self-custody, and most people don't trust themselves to manage their own money—and for good reason, it's difficult and the cost of mistakes is high. Traditional financial products exist that allow people to insure their future in fiat terms, but now bitcoin is starting to make its way into that arena.

Meanwhile, for example, is a life insurance company that entirely denominates its premiums and claims in bitcoin. Not only does this fulfill the same outcome as HODLing by paying a certain amount of bitcoin (at a certain price) now in return for a payout in bitcoin (at a higher price) later, but it also goes further.

Life insurance is boring, which is just what bitcoin needs, according to Zac Townsend, the CEO of Meanwhile.

"We accept all our premiums in bitcoin. We pay all our claims in bitcoin," Townsend says. "Because all our assets and liabilities are in bitcoin, the price of bitcoin doesn't matter."

"We have already worked on policies right now that are going to outlive me," he says.

Bermudian-based Meanwhile, the first and only life insurer with premiums in crypto currency, has launched with approximately $19 million in financing across two seed rounds.

The first was co-led by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and Lachy Groom, previous head of Stripe Issuing, and with Gradient Ventures in the top spot during the second round.

"As one of the few innovations in money in the last century, Bitcoin is on track to become a global store of value and functional currency," said Zac Townsend, co-founder and CEO of Meanwhile, who has been building projects at the intersection of tech, finance and policy for more than a decade.

Lachy Groom, the former Stripe executive, Openai CEO Sam Altman, and Gradient Ventures spearheaded the two funding rounds with additional investors such as Muoro Capital (Santander), MS&AD, and Hudson Structured Capital Management. Angel investors participating in the rounds include Sam Blond of Founders Fund, Lauren Kolodny of Acrew, Marc Bhavaga of General Catalyst, Parker Conrad, Dylan Field, and Nick Schrock.

Anna Patterson, managing partner at Gradient Ventures, commented that Meanwhile is "sitting at the confluence of the AI and digital assets transformation." She expressed belief in the company's potential to revolutionize consumer usage of digital currencies and establish new benchmarks for tech-driven life insurance providers.

Traditional insurers engage in "tedious and time-consuming" manual processes and reviews, with a typical policy taking weeks to be underwritten, according to the company. Utilizing AI-powered underwriting, claims, and operations, Max Gasner, CTO and co-founder of Meanwhile, and this team are building an efficient end-to-end insurance system reducing manual labour and aim to promote transparency. Meanwhile tries to bring a frictionless offering to one of the oldest financial products in the world, life insurance, by harnessing the power of AI and operating entirely in digital assets.

Townsend said the volatility typically associated with the bitcoin price isn't a concern for Meanwhile.

"Market moves that impact the price of BTC do not impact our underwriting or our guarantees because we take premiums and pay out claims in BTC," he said. "We think hundreds of millions of folks will be onboarding into the bitcoin economy in the coming decades, and we're building the life insurance company for them."

After last month's testimony before Congress on AI issues, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, has backed a new project. Altman co-led two seed rounds raising $19 million for Meanwhile, the first BTC-denominated life insurer.

Since Bitcoin is a fully automated and decentralized asset, Townsend sees AI integration as natural. Life insurance is one of the most popular and oldest products, with three in four Americans having at least some form. Globally, the market for whole life insurance is expected to grow from $170.72 billion in 2022 to $175.67 billion in 2023, according to Research and Markets.

Bitcoin believers hope to one day use the cryptocurrency in every facet of their financial lives, from paying for coffee to taking out loans.

Now, they have an option to use the cryptocurrency in life after death. On Tuesday, the Bitcoin-backed and A.I.-powered life insurer Meanwhile announced that it had raised $19 million to help deceased Bitcoiners pay out surviving loved ones in crypto.

Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd. (HSCM), the insurance, reinsurance and transportation focused investment manager, has participated in a seed funding round for cryptocurrency denominated Bermuda life insurance start-up Meanwhile.

"The insurance sector is often regarded as inefficient and adverse to new technologies, and frankly, that is true in many cases," added Jon Soberg, Managing Partner of MS&AD Ventures. "Meanwhile flips this perception on its head, uniting both blockchain and AI to create a truly one-of-a-kind, dynamic life insurance program. We are delighted to participate in this funding round and look forward to seeing the unique financial products Meanwhile will unveil."