Slingshot
Legacy carriers spent 200 years optimizing for rare, catastrophic risk. The actual growth market is now small, frequent, and embedded in every checkout. The economics that protected incumbents for a century now lock them out of the future.
The tension
For 200 years, insurance economics were designed for the rare and catastrophic -- the burning house, the totaled car, the $100M program. Carriers built 500-person operations around low-frequency, high-value transactions.
The world that needs insurance now looks nothing like that. Every small business. Every embedded checkout. Every $25 policy at 30% year-over-year growth. The actual growth market is high-frequency, low-volume, and embedded in software.
The math that protected the incumbents for a century is now the math that locks them out.
Legacy carrier economics
Slingshot economics
Market opportunity
Like Stripe for payments and Shopify for commerce -- when the infrastructure becomes accessible, the market multiplies.
Global insurance
$7T
Third-largest market in the US
Embedded insurance
$144B
Projected market by 2030
YoY growth
30%+
Embedded insurance segment
Embedded MGAs
700+
And growing as infrastructure unlocks
What legacy carriers optimize for
Where the growth is
Sources: Munich Re Embedded Insurance Market Report, Insurance Information Institute, Rally Ventures Market Analysis
The platform
Not another fronting carrier collecting 5% and forwarding faxes. Not a legacy system wrapped in a chatbot. A fully licensed carrier with fifty-state capacity and an operating system designed from the first line of code for the inverted market.
Every data object carries an artifact-level record of origin, chain of custody, and version history. The bordereau number is provably the real number. Audit-ready by default, not by scramble.
8% market saturation
The platform compounds intelligence from every transaction across all partners. When an underwriter leaves a legacy carrier, the knowledge walks out the door. Our memory engine means it stays.
5% market saturation
Economics built for $25 policies at hundreds of thousands of transactions. Legacy carrier OpEx requires $20M+ programs to break even. We make $1M-$20M programs structurally profitable.
3% market saturation
"We are the only carrier whose economics were built from the first line of code for the high-frequency, low-volume, embedded insurance market that legacy carriers are structurally locked out of serving."
Business model
The carrier is the wedge. The infrastructure is the moat. We seek tech multiples, not carrier multiples.
~5% of gross written premium on every policy. Industry standard pricing, dramatically more value delivered -- full-stack AI operations versus bare-bones paper.
As data matures and actuarial credibility compounds, we retain a percentage of risk rather than ceding 100% to reinsurers. Expands net margins from 5% to approximately 20%.
Better data quality means less collateral required from reinsurers, which flows as better economics to our MGA partners. Their economics improve. Their loyalty compounds.
Actuarial advisory, product design, regulatory filings, MGA bootstrapping. The services layer that creates stickiness and accelerates partner revenue growth.
Margin expansion thesis
As institutional memory compounds and loss ratios prove out, we progressively retain risk on the balance sheet rather than ceding 100% to reinsurers. The data architecture makes the actuarial case for retention. The retention makes the margin case for investors.
Traction
First customer
Brock built Vertical Insure as an embedded insurance MGA -- insurance at the point of checkout for sports registrations, pet insurance, event cancellation. He proved the model works. Then he experienced every pain point of the carrier relationship firsthand: six-month onboarding, opaque data, carriers who provide paper and nothing else.
So he became our co-founder and first customer. The voice of the MGA is permanently at the founding table. What Brock wants is what every embedded MGA wants.
400,000+
Policies processed
$25
Average policy premium
6+
Product lines
50%+
Price inelasticity
Rally Ventures
Rally GPs are hands-on with the initial build. Go-to-market runs through Rally's portfolio of embedded finance and vertical SaaS companies. This is not a check and a board seat. This is a distribution channel built into the founding structure.
Development partner
AI development experts within the Rally ecosystem. Prototype already built. The engineering infrastructure is not a hiring problem to solve -- it is a partnership already in motion.
Pipeline
Shell carrier acquisition underway. Form A regulatory approval in process. Targeting operational launch by mid-2026. E&S approval enables nationwide coverage without state-by-state product filings.
The ask
Seed round to build the infrastructure for the inverted market.
Carrier Acquisition
Complete shell carrier acquisition. Regulatory capital reserves. Form A approval. Fifty-state E&S licensing.
Platform build
Complete the Slingshot OS. Artifact-based data trust. Institutional memory engine. API layer for MGA integration.
Reinsurance
Secure reinsurance treaties. Establish relationships with Lloyd's, Tokyo Marine, and the broader reinsurance market.
Go-to-market
Onboard first cohort of MGA partners through Rally portfolio. Prove the model. Build the collective intelligence base.
18-month milestones
Operational carrier
Licensed, capitalized, and writing embedded insurance programs through Slingshot OS.
Differentiated brand
Recognized as the technology-first carrier in the embedded insurance space. Category-defining market position.
Reinsurance trust
Artifact-based data trust creates a structural advantage in reinsurance negotiations -- better data means better terms, better terms means better MGA economics.
Why now
The AI models required to codify actuarial, underwriting, and compliance expertise only became capable enough in the last 12 months. Building this carrier two years ago was technically impossible. Building it two years from now means the market has been claimed.
Every vertical SaaS company is discovering that embedded insurance is a high-margin revenue line sitting on their existing distribution. The number of companies needing carrier infrastructure is growing 30%+ annually. There is no carrier built for them.
The EU AI Act and emerging US state-level insurance AI rules are turning data trust architecture from nice-to-have to mandatory. Carriers that did not build audit-ready infrastructure from the start will be retrofitting for years.
Swiss Re tried with iptiQ -- $750M annual revenue, unlimited capital -- and is now selling it off. The problem is not capital. It is architecture. You cannot retrofit a mainframe for high-frequency trading. You cannot retrofit a legacy carrier for the inverted market.
Appendix
Team, competitive landscape, product architecture, first-mover advantages, and financial projections.
A. The team
Co-Founder & CEO
Fellow-level actuary. Former Chief Actuary and Chief Data Officer at Palomar, a $10B public carrier. Managed $2B in top-line revenue with 500 employees. Writes production code. Left a successful career because the architecture could not be fixed from inside. The rarest combination in insurance: actuarial precision, technical architecture, and founder vision.
Co-Founder & First Customer
Built Vertical Insure -- embedded insurance at the point of checkout for sports, pet, event, and surety products. Experienced every carrier pain point from the MGA side. His journey from "I need insurance at checkout" to "my carrier burned me" to "I'm building the carrier from the inside" is the company's founding story. What Brock wants is what the market wants.
Rally Ventures / Founding Partners
Rally Ventures has backed embedded finance from its earliest days. Justin and Jeff are not passive board members -- they are hands-on with the initial build, go-to-market strategy, and capital architecture. Rally's portfolio of vertical SaaS and fintech companies is the built-in distribution channel. The Stripe analog was their thesis before it was ours.
Why this team wins.
No other founding team in the insurance space combines a Fellow-level actuary who writes code, a co-founder who is the first customer and built the embedded MGA from scratch, and a venture partner with the embedded finance playbook and portfolio distribution. This is not three resumes. This is three structural advantages that compound: domain expertise that cannot be hired, customer empathy that cannot be faked, and a distribution channel that cannot be bought.
B. Competitive landscape
85% claim speed. 75% claim AI. 70% claim cloud-native. These are not differentiators. These are the sound of the market.
| Capability | Market saturation | Slingshot | Competitors avg. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Artifact-based data trust | 8% | 0/18 | |
| Institutional memory engine | 5% | 0/18 | |
| Sub-$20M program economics | 3% | 0/18 | |
| First customer as co-founder | 0% | 0/18 | |
| Snapshot vs. restated reporting | 0% | 0/18 | |
| Purpose-built for embedded MGAs | 3% | 1/18 | |
| Vertically integrated AI (no vendors) | 5% | 1/18 |
Based on analysis of 107 competitors across 3 competitive rings. 18 structurally similar competitors scored across 14 dimensions.
C. Product architecture
Legacy carriers assemble 16+ vendor point solutions. Each vendor contract is technical debt. Each integration boundary is a data lineage break. We built the entire stack in-house as one system.
Layer 1
API-first onboarding. Multi-party workspace. Real-time data exchange. The Dominos pizza tracker for insurance -- MGA partners always know exactly where they are in the process.
Layer 2
On-demand actuarial, underwriting, and compliance expertise at zero marginal cost. Institutional memory that compounds across every partner. The $500/hr actuary, available 24/7.
Layer 3
Artifact-based storage. Every data object carries a birth certificate, chain of custody, and version history. Snapshot vs. restated reporting. The bordereau number is provably the real number.
Layer 4
Regulatory compliance, reinsurance cession, statutory reporting, capital management. The carrier infrastructure that makes everything above possible. Fully licensed. Fifty-state capacity.
D. First-mover advantages
Every transaction across every MGA partner feeds the intelligence engine. Day 1 performance equals Year 5 knowledge. A competitor starting in 2028 inherits zero collective intelligence. This gap widens permanently.
Birth certificates cannot be retroactively applied to data that was created without them. Every legacy carrier that wants to match our data lineage must rebuild their entire pipeline and discard everything that predates the rebuild.
EU AI Act and US state-level insurance AI rules make explainability mandatory within 12-18 months. We are audit-ready by default. Competitors are going to be retrofitting while we are scaling.
The curated partner collective creates shared benchmarking value. Each new MGA makes the collective more valuable for every existing MGA. Switching costs compound. The book aggregates. The reinsurance terms improve for everyone.
Legacy carriers are locking themselves into multi-year vendor contracts that become technical debt as AI evolves. We build in-house. Every improvement lands immediately across the entire platform. Zero integration tax.
Building a licensed carrier requires regulatory capital, state-by-state approvals, and reinsurance relationships that take years to establish. The capital barrier is real -- approximately $40M to stand up the full infrastructure. That barrier protects everyone inside it.
E. Financial projections
Combination of revenue growth and capital efficiency designed into the operating model from Day 1.
Placeholder -- detailed projections in data room
5%
Carrier fee on GWP
20%
Target net margin at scale
Tech
Multiples, not carrier multiples
Progressive risk retention creates a margin expansion path from 5% carrier fees at launch to approximately 20% net margins as actuarial credibility compounds and the platform retains risk on well-performing books.
The carrier built for the market the incumbents were built wrong for.
Slingshot
Confidential -- for intended recipients only