Betterfly, a Chilean insurtech that presents itself as “a purpose-driven benefits platform”, announced a $125 million Series C funding round, achieving unicorn status – and becoming the first Latin American B Corporation to reach this milestone. Founded in 2018 and officially launched in 2020 by Eduardo and Cristobal della Maggiora, Betterfly has raised $200 million so far and is so confident in its business model that it plans to go global by 2023.
Glade Brook Capital led the round, followed by new investors Greycroft and Lightrock (a global impact fund focused on growth equity), among others. QED Investors and DST Global Partners – who led the company’s Series A and Series B rounds, respectively – also participated.
Six months ago, the startup raised a $60 million Series B and announced its arrival in Brazil, its second market. In 2022, it intends to reach seven new markets in Latin America and the Caribbean (Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, and Costa Rica). By 2023, the startup also plans to begin operations in the United States, Portugal, and Spain.
The company has developed an embedded insurance B2B2C model that integrates wellbeing, financial services, and social impact. How does the startup do it? Based on a scoring scheme and rewards in the form of a discount. The more activities such as meditation and walking the employees do, the greater the coverage of the life insurance contracted via the platform. But more than “plumping up” the insurance value, these points earned for each good habit acquired (called Better Coins), also become donations to non-governmental institutions of different types.
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Early on, the company structured itself as a Public Benefit Corporation and was certified as a B-Corp, with a legal mission and business model that considers a “triple bottom line” – People, Planet, and Profit – extending benefits to stakeholders like communities and employees.
“When we made the decision to structure ourselves in this way, I was frequently told that this would prevent us from growing and raising capital in the future. In reality, the opposite has been true. I would go as far as saying that the fact that we put social purpose at the center of everything we do, our operations, culture, and brand is the reason we have been able to grow as we have and reach several milestones that just a couple of years back would have seemed impossible,” said della Maggiora in a statement distributed to the press.
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“It’s not every day that you see a company grow more than 20X in a year and it’s even rarer to have the talent to keep up with that kind of growth. Eduardo and his team are extremely well-positioned to take Betterfly to new heights and we are thrilled to continue to invest in their Series C after our prior investments in the A and B rounds,” said QED Investors partner and Betterfly board member Mike Packer, also in the statement.
And Betterfly wants to accelerate its growth not just organically. Since its last funding round, the startup has acquired six companies in Chile and Brazil, entered the Brazilian market with a partnership with Icatú, the country’s largest independent insurer, and announced an extensive partnership with the global insurer Chubb.
