Scout InsurTech Interview with Xcela.ai

Xcela.ai is an AI Native platform. They seek to simplify your life insurance sales and operations processes. Chris Luiz sat with Founder and CEO, Angus Dunn, to learn more about how hyperexponential is impacting the industry.

Who are Xcela’s clients?

Our clients are life insurance agents and brokerages.

What does your product do?

Our product helps life insurance agents and brokers sell better, faster and smarter. We achieve this by gathering essential client information, including prescription histories (RX), electronic health records, basic demographics and financial information. This allows agents to access the right data to prepare applications efficiently and improve their sales process.

How much capital have you raised?

We completed an angel funding round in April 2024.

Was the company born from within or outside the industry?

Our company was founded from the intersection of two industries—technology and life insurance. My CTO and I come from the tech world, having worked in startups and big tech like SAP, Google and Salesforce. Meanwhile, our co-founder, Nick Bowman, comes from the life insurance space, where he has over 14 years of experience selling policies with companies like MassMutual, Guardian and Lion Street.

What growth metrics have you accomplished over the last 12 months?

Over the past year, we’ve grown our user base from zero to more than 60 users across 20 customers, which is a strong achievement for a startup at this stage.

Within your domain, what is the current challenge that the industry is facing?

The biggest challenge in the life insurance industry is the high volume of manual, tedious and low-value administrative tasks agents must complete in order to sell policies. These tasks take up valuable time that could be better spent building relationships with clients. Our AI platform streamlines these back-office processes - such as gathering and processing information - so agents can focus more on their clients.

How does Xcela take a unique approach to providing value?

We differentiate ourselves by analyzing the day-to-day tasks of life insurance agents and identifying which are high-value and which are low-value. High-value tasks—such as client relationships—should remain in the hands of agents, while low-value, repetitive tasks are where we focus our technology. Our AI platform automates these processes, alleviating pain points and improving efficiency.

What inspired the team to start this company?

Our inspiration came from both macro and micro factors. On a macro level, generative AI (Gen AI) has become a major topic in the past couple of years, and we saw an opportunity to apply it to a meaningful use case. We believe that AI can significantly enhance life insurance distribution, benefiting both agents and clients by making the process more efficient. Our vision is to combine the power of Gen AI with strong client-agent relationships to create better outcomes for all.

Can you share any goals for the next 12 months?

Our top priority over the next year is to finalize and refine our product, so we can reach a broader audience. Additionally, we aim to partner with more brokers and agencies to help them sell life insurance more effectively.

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