DeadHappy raise £4m in Series A to continue to challenge death taboos

• Life insurance InsurTech company DeadHappy has completed a £4 million Series A funding round, attracting global venture capital firm e.ventures alongside seed investor Octopus Ventures.
• This funding round will allow the company to increase its technological capabilities around the ‘Deathwish’ platform, expand its product offering, and broaden distribution.
• Since launching earlier this year, DeadHappy has welcomed tens of thousands of applicants to create ‘Deathwishes’ through their fully integrated life insurance platform.
• These final wishes help customers express what they want to happen when they die, and the initial customer response has yielded a market-leading Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 80+.
• The company is also already in conversation with a range of partners who are seeking to capitalise on its product advantages.

Monday 16th September 2019 – Disruptive InsurTech start up DeadHappy secures Series A funding of £4 million. DeadHappy wants to change attitudes to death and the business of death services – starting with life
insurance. As the UK’s first fully digital pay-as-you-go life insurance provider, the company is disrupting the market like no one else. This funding will allow the start up to power future growth by building the technology and capabilities of its ‘Deathwish’ platform, as well as expand its product and partnership offerings to major financial service distributors.

Phil Zeidler, Co-founder of DeadHappy said: “We’re delighted e.ventures have joined Octopus Ventures in backing our vision. There’s real momentum behind genuinely disruptive insurance propositions, but we see the opportunity for a much broader platform creating different death services, as well as disrupting the world of insurance.

Distribution is key for us, we began life as a direct-to-consumer proposition but there’s a big opportunity for us to distribute our products through other brands. We’re pleased to have proved that our product serves the market and now we’re focusing on scaling the business. This funding will help us to expand our technology and create additional products including digital wills, accidental death and critical illness cover. We’re also able to grow our team and relocate to bigger business premises.”

DeadHappy believes in fairer and more flexible life insurance. Its acceptance footprint is expanding and currently 70% of applications are accepted. And customers are happy too – the current Net Promoter Score (NPS) is over 80 and more than 63,000 deathwishes have been registered on the platform since launch. Phil said: “Our Trustpilot reviews also prove that customers love what we offer – our innovations are different and that’s landing really well with them. We hear again and again from our customers that they find our application so simple and easy – we strive to take the complexity out of the process.” Andreas Haug, Managing Partner at e.ventures said, “ We were impressed by the DeadHappy team and their vision for changing death-related services. They have made excellent progress in a short time, and we look forward to supporting them through this exciting period of growth.”

DeadHappy

DeadHappy is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) – the independent body which regulates firms working in financial services. The company is also supported by strategic partnerships with industry heavyweights including Covéa and GenRe.

To find out more about DeadHappy and personalised life insurance, including deathwishes, check out deadhappy.com.

Media contacts
Phil Zeidler, [email protected]

About DeadHappy

DeadHappy is the UK’s first fully digital pay-as-you-go life insurance provider. Its PAYG life insurance policies are designed to be cheaper, easier and better than existing traditional providers. As a result, the company is on a mission to make it simpler for everyone, particularly the 8.1 million Brits1 who don’t have life insurance, to get protection that meets their needs at the right price. Its ‘Deathwishes’ also help customers personalise their life insurance by expressing what they want to happen when they die – from being able to pay off their mortgage to funding a wake party in Ibiza
for their friends.

Note to editors

Research by Compare the Market, published by Yourmoney, July’18

About e.ventures

e.ventures is a global venture capital platform founded in 1998 with an investment focus on earlystage consumer internet and software companies. The management team is spread globally in order to focus on supporting all the portfolio companies wherever needed and invests out of dedicated funds in the U.S., Europe, Brazil, China, and Japan. e.ventures’ portfolio comprises various disruptive industry leaders such as Acorns, Shipt, Segment, Sonos, The RealReal, NGINX and Farfetch. For more information, please visit www.eventures.vc.

About Octopus Ventures

Octopus Ventures helps pioneers change the world. The pioneers we back dare to reimagine the future of health, money and industry. With £1.2 billion under management, Octopus Ventures is one of the largest VCs in Europe. Our typical investment is from £1 million for Seed to £5 million for Series A and we can follow our investment from a few hundred thousand right up to £25 million. Our team is based in London and New York with Venture Partners in San Francisco, Singapore and China.

The companies we back become a part of this network, with access to a formidable resource of experience and expertise. Octopus Ventures have backed the founding teams of nearly 100 companies including Zoopla, Secret Escapes, Elvie, Depop, Sofar Sounds and Cazoo. Some of our portfolio companies have gone on to join forces with the world’s largest businesses including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Twitter.

Our investment team is focused on the three areas we believe have the most potential to change the world for the better:

• Future of Health – Helping the pioneers who are improving lives through digital health,
• tackling ‘taboo’ issues and creating essential software to power health systems.
• Future of Money – Backing the companies that will transform the way we exchange and allocate resources as a society.
• Deep Tech – Focusing on the tools and technologies that will power the next industrial revolution. These include human computer interaction, edge computing, robotics and synthetic biology.

Octopus Ventures is part of Octopus Group

Octopus is a group of innovative, entrepreneurial businesses investing in the people, ideas and industries that will help to change the world. We are experts in financial services and energy, transforming these markets by offering our customers access to smart and simple solutions that do what we say they will. Today we manage more than £8.6 billion on behalf of retail and institutional investors. Octopus Energy, Octopus Investments, Octopus Renewables, Octopus Real Estate, Octopus Ventures and Octopus Wealth are all part of Octopus Group. Visit octopusgroup.com.

Press Contact:

Sophie Currah, Seven Hills
+44 20 7199 2204
+44 7446 886 603
[email protected]