Turning financial products into a force for good — why we continue to love YuLife

This round will enable more companies to empower their employees to be healthier and happier in mind and body.

I’m delighted for the YuLife team as they announce their $70 million Series B investment and proud that MMC continues to support such a fantastic company 🙂. The business has come a long way since we first invested in 2019 but the mission and vision remains the same, to transform the group life insurance market with a proposition that engages, rewards and protects employees.

Ripe for transformation

Our thesis across insurance remains focused on the vast opportunities that exist for new technology-led propositions to disrupt incumbents and quickly scale. Life insurance is a fantastic example. It has been clear to us for a while that, amongst those that have it, most employees have no idea who provides their company life insurance and at the same time HR Directors continue to hunt for engaging wellness offerings for their staff.

There is also a broader awareness of the importance of employee wellness with a focus on physical and mental wellbeing. Prior to the covid-19 pandemic, we were hosting YuLife events for 100+ HR professionals at the MMC offices in response to this need and over the last 15 months, covid-19 has highlighted the importance of engaging with your workforce in a meaningful way.

Next level engagement

One YuLife superpower is the team’s relentless focus on the product — with Josh Hart leading the charge — and its outstanding engagement stats highlight how successful they have been. They take a holistic approach to risk management using behavioural science, technology and game mechanics to create an engaging and motivating experience.

YuLife’s life insurance includes everything in a traditional group life insurance policy — but also adds critical illness, income protection, virtual GP services and employment assistance such as counselling and coaching.

The proposition rewards small behavioural changes, like walking or meditating, with its wellbeing currency YuCoin. This currency can be exchanged for vouchers and discounts — from retailers inc. Amazon, Avios, ASOS, Fitbit & BuzzBike — and has been loved by the MMC team with new Nike trainers and tops (Lucci), BA flights (Bruce) and many random Amazon purchases (Henry) all having been fully funded with YuCoin.

We can also testify that the team step count leaderboards gets quite competitive, with the MMC team all well aware of where they rank!

MMC podium featuring Yumojis of me, Bruce and Masamba

YuLife is now offering cover to employees and their families at world-leading companies, including Capital One and Co-op as well as being used by a number of the MMC portfolio including Signal AI (shout out to MMC’s Platform & Community Manager, Lucci, for many intros 👏). In the past year alone YuLife has seen more than 10x growth in Gross Written Premiums and is providing over $15bn of total cover to its clients.

Long term, it is all about the data

As more and more people use YuLife, the volume of data flowing through the platform continues to grow and the company is incredibly well positioned to progress towards more accurate underwriting and pricing, and overtime, progress to the much talked about end game of continuous underwriting.

Example of current employer feedback

The primary reason I believe YuLife continues to be so successful: its people

Since we first met Sammy, Sam, Josh, Jonathan, and Jaco, we’ve been super impressed with their purpose-led approach and the quality of the team they are building. Now, two years later, I’ve been blown away by the speed at which they have managed to hire top talent across every area of the business.

As founders, your most important role is hiring great people and building a world-class team around you, particularly on the journey from Series A to Series B. What has been so impressive about the YuLife story is the way in which the team continues to take every opportunity to hire the best people, regardless of where they may have met them (such as at a friend’s wedding!), or whether there is a live vacancy at the time.

What’s next?

This fundraise is fantastic news for the team and we’re very excited to continue to support them on this journey. For its next phase of growth, the business has big plans, which will see it introduce new products and expand into new global markets.

I’m also delighted to welcome our friends at Target Global, Eurazeo and Latitude and look forward to seeing what the YuCrew can achieve next!

Learn more about the YuLife proposition here, or join the team on the adventure.