Inclined Technologies raises a $8 million Series B to expand borrowing against whole life insurance—an option its founders say has been historically reserved for the wealthy—just as insurtech funding shows signs of life in 2025.

SAN FRANCISCO — Inclined Technologies, a fintech that lets people borrow against the cash value of their whole life insurance policies, has secured an $8 million Series B round led by HSCM Ventures with participation from Northwestern Mutual and other new and existing backers, the company told Crunchbase News. The raise brings Inclined’s total funding to roughly $31 million and, notably, comes at a premium to its prior financing. For a sector that has endured several lean years, the deal is a small but telling signal that investors are again open for business.

Co‑founder Mark Shaw—best known to many in tech circles for early roles at fitness platform Strava and for co‑founding insurance software provider Guidewire—says the mission at Inclined is to make a wealth‑management staple accessible to more people: borrowing against a whole life policy without the friction and cost of traditional policy loans. “It’s about opening up a benefit that has long been available, but not always approachable,” he says.

How it works: A bank‑backed line tied to insurance cash value

Whole life policies accumulate a cash value that policyowners can tap while they’re alive. Instead of withdrawing that value—which can reduce long‑term benefits—many policyholders prefer to borrow against it and keep the policy compounding. Inclined’s flagship product, the iLOC, is a revolving line of credit secured by a policy’s cash value and offered via financial advisers at carriers it partners with, including Northwestern Mutual, MassMutual and Guardian Life. The startup says the structure can deliver lower rates than typical policy loans by routing lending through banks, while removing nuisance fees and late‑payment penalties often associated with legacy processes. Customers use the liquidity for everything from real‑estate down payments to education bills and portfolio rebalancing.

One consumer‑friendly twist: active iLOCs aren’t reported as ongoing debt to credit bureaus, according to company materials, which can make the facility feel less like a traditional consumer loan and more like a private line of liquidity. Inclined also highlights minimal recurring payment requirements and a digital onboarding flow designed to compress what used to be weeks of paperwork into days.

Why now: A cautious thaw in insurtech funding

Inclined’s round arrives against a mixed backdrop. Venture investment in insurance and insurtech startups fell sharply from 2021’s peak, with sector funding dropping in both 2023 and 2024. But through the first half of 2025, capital has begun to rebound: insurance‑related startups have raised nearly as much in six months as they did in all of last year, putting the industry on pace to notch its first annual increase since the downturn began. Analysts note that while AI soaks up much of today’s venture firepower, insurance remains a vast, data‑heavy market where automation can move real dollars and risk.

The cumulative picture underscores that point. Industry trackers estimate that since 2012, more than $60 billion has flowed into insurtech globally. Even if the pace lags hotter categories, that pool of capital—and the digital plumbing it has built—gives startups like Inclined a clearer path to distribution through incumbent carriers and banks.

Inside the numbers: Growth, originations and a smaller B on purpose

Since its 2020 founding, Inclined says more than $1 billion in credit has been originated on its platform. The company declines to share exact revenue but reports that annual recurring revenue is up more than 50× since its last round in late 2022—good for a triple‑digit compound growth rate. About 2,000 insurance professionals now recommend the iLOC to clients, and roughly 3,500 policyowners actively use it. Rather than charging consumers, Inclined primarily earns fees from its banking partners, an alignment it says keeps lending costs predictable.

If $8 million sounds modest for a Series B, that’s intentional. CEO Josh Wyss describes the raise as “judicious”—enough to hit the next milestones without diluting unnecessarily in a market still finding its footing. The new capital will go mainly to sales and to expanding engineering capacity for integrations, risk controls and the kind of policy‑data plumbing that turns a niche product into a mainstream channel.

Democratizing a ‘wealthy’ strategy—without the fine‑print traps

Borrowing against a whole life policy has long been a tool of affluent households: a way to access relatively low‑cost liquidity while keeping assets working. The pitch today is that software can remove legacy frictions—paper forms, opaque interest calculations, slow servicing—and make the math pencil out for a broader swath of policyowners. But expanding access also raises consumer‑protection questions. Suitable use cases matter. Using policy cash value to speculate can backfire if markets move against a borrower or if rates rise. And while iLOCs don’t show up as revolving debt on credit reports, obligations still have to be repaid; otherwise interest can capitalize and eat into policy performance over time.

Inclined’s answer is to lean on advisers and guardrails. Because iLOCs are distributed through carrier‑affiliated financial professionals, there is a suitability filter built into the workflow. On the product side, the company emphasizes audit trails, clear rate disclosures and digital dashboards that model repayment scenarios. Bank partners, for their part, bring balance‑sheet discipline and underwriting standards that can keep the economics sustainable at scale.

What it means for incumbents

For big insurers, third‑party platforms like Inclined can be a release valve for pent‑up demand among policyowners who want cleaner access to cash value but balk at traditional policy loans. For banks, it opens a collateral type that behaves differently from credit‑card or HELOC books, with the insurer’s guarantees adding a layer of comfort. And for financial advisers, it’s another lever in the balance‑sheet toolkit—one that can keep long‑term plans on track when clients face short‑term liquidity needs.

Competitive landscape

The idea of unlocking insurance cash value isn’t new, and Inclined isn’t alone in chasing it. What has changed is the software layer: faster identity and policy verification; integrations to carrier systems; and automated servicing that reduces operational cost per account. That stack makes smaller credit lines economical, which expands the addressable market beyond high‑net‑worth households. The question for investors is whether defensibility will come from bank partnerships, data rights with carriers, or from the operational muscle to keep defaults and servicing costs low.

The road ahead

Execution, not category buzz, will decide whether iLOCs become a mainstream feature of retail insurance. With rates still elevated versus the pre‑pandemic decade, the spread between bank lines and policy loan alternatives will be watched closely. Regulators, too, are sharpening their pencils on consumer lending and disclosures. Inclined’s next phase—scaling origination while keeping unit economics tight—will test whether the company’s early traction can translate into a durable platform before the cycle shifts again.

For now, the signal is encouraging: a measured round led by a specialist investor, a strategic insurer on the cap table, and momentum that suggests borrowing against a life‑insurance policy may be less of a luxury and more of a mainstream financial move. If software can keep the experience transparent and the economics fair, the old wealth‑management trick could finally shed its velvet rope.