Relay Platform Acquired by InsurTech Unicorn, At-Bay
In 2019, Highline Beta and American Family got together to build a startup. We explored a variety of ideas, conducted extensive research and validation and eventually landed on the workflow challenges between reinsurers and insurers. Out of that work, we built, funded and spun-out Relay Platform. It was the first co-created startup launched by Highline Beta. You can read the case study for more information on the journey.
Since its launch, Relay Platform has pivoted and grown. The company, led by CEO Greg Boutin, found traction as a quoting engine, with a focus on cyber insurance. Breaking into the insurance space, particularly on the enterprise software side, is complex and challenging. The Relay team kept pushing, exploring different angles, securing corporate partnerships and raising additional venture capital.
Today, we’re pleased to announce that Relay Platform has been acquired by At-Bay. At-Bay is a cybersecurity insurance company that’s raised nearly $300M dollars from top-tier investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures, Icon Ventures and more. At-Bay sees the potential of Relay Platform’s quoting platform to help accelerate their product roadmap and expand their capabilities. We’re excited to see what At-Bay and Relay Platform accomplish together.
In a few short years, it’s been an incredible journey for Relay. With a focus on product and strong partnerships into the insurance ecosystem, they built a strong foundation for future growth. Now, with At-Bay’s resources, Relay Platform has the potential to truly change how brokers and agents interface with insurance providers to easily add specialty lines to their client proposals.
Working with Highline Beta was a great experience. They helped me accelerate our initial development and launch, and provided me with a team, a corporate partner and initial capital to get started. The Highline Beta venture studio was an essential co-founder for Relay Platform in the first year of our existence, and continued to support us throughout our growth.”
Greg Boutin, CEO at Relay Platform
The journey of incubating, building, funding and spinning out a startup is intense. And it wouldn’t be possible without the people at Highline Beta that worked tirelessly with American Family, and then with a small Relay Platform team to make it happen. In addition, Relay Platform’s investors, including NFP Ventures (Distributed Ventures) and DRIVE Capital, funded and supported the company throughout.
Relay Platform is the culmination of bringing together many of the ingredients you need to build successful startups: a validated problem, a strong founder and founding team, a great product, early investment capital and a corporate partner that serves as the first customer & partner. This is why we believe so strongly in the venture studio model, which is designed to de-risk and accelerate the first few years of a company’s existence.
Marcus Daniels, CEO at Highline Beta
We learned a great deal building Relay Platform through our venture studio, and we’ve carried those lessons with us as we continue to evolve our venture studio model and build more startups in collaboration with corporate partners. Relay strengthened our conviction in the venture studio model for accelerating new ideas into the market, the importance of securing the first big customer and/or partner, scaling through global corporate distribution deals and winning as a team.