Sam Altman joins investors in $19 million round for crypto life insurance startup

Meanwhile, a digital asset-denominated life insurance provider, today announced $19 million in fundraising across two rounds.

The Bermuda-based business said it had closed two seed-stage rounds. The first was led by OpenAI CEO and Worldcoin founder Sam Altman, alongside former head of Stripe issuing Lachy Groom. Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI fund, led the second round.

Meanwhile claims to be the first and only life insurer to offer products entirely denominated in crypto.

The fresh funding paves the way for it to be licensed and regulated as a life insurance firm by the Bermuda Monetary Authority. It will also be used for hiring as the startup gears up to launch its first product — bitcoin-denominated whole life insurance.  

“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, in a written statement.

“When you combine that with artificial intelligence, we see the potential to build a full-stack life insurance company with the aim to reach over a billion people globally. To start, it makes perfect sense for long-term holders of BTC to invest in life insurance denominated in that asset and to enable a percentage of their BTC holdings to become active.”