Hi Marley

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Founders: Mitesh Suchak, Mike Greene, John Miller
Founding: 2017
Mission: To empower insurance to communicate simply, build trust and protect what people love
Employees: 100+ & ~75% in Boston area
Workplace: Flexible
Stage & Capital Raised: Series B & $41.7M
Investors: Bain Capital, Brewer Lane, Emergence Capital, Greenspring Associates, True Ventures, Underscore VC
Key Customers: Amica, AAA, Cumberland Mutual, Plymouth Rock Assurance & more here
Glassdoor Rating: 5.0
Valuation (estimated): $100M – $300M (assuming they sold ~20% of the company in the Q1 ‘21 $25M Series B)
^ this is a useless number. There is no tangible valuation until the business is sold or goes public. Don’t forget it!

Hi Marley is “communication software for insurance companies” or, in their parlance, “simple, lovable communication”. You can imagine the daily problems that insurance companies face. Their most engaged customers are coming to them at some of the most difficult times of their lives – car accidents, fires, damaged property you name it. I would know. I got in 3 fender benders before my 18th birthday. And one of them wasn’t my fault, ok? Communication is critical!

Hi Marley provides a texting solution that connects policyholders with their carriers. On the back end their platform seamlessly connects to an ecosystem of adjusters, carrier reps, and even large enterprise systems like Duck Creek & Guidewire. Their belief is that happier customers stick around. Their platform helps insurance companies retain customers and drive higher long term value by giving them a better customer experience. Over their 5 years of existence they have signed up 60+ insurance carriers on a mission to empower insurance to communicate simply, build trust and protect what people love.

The company was founded in 2017 by Mike Greene, John Miller & Mitesh Suchak. Through some internet sleuthing it looks like Mike & Mitesh worked together at IBM before co-founding an insurance services & solutions company called “Futurity” where they were soon joined by John. Futurity grew to approximately 20 employees in 3 years before they were acquired by publicly traded Aon PLC in 2010. President Judy Merante, when asked for a comment about the acquisition, stated Futurity “has been the only company exclusively focused on improving property and casualty claims performance through a unique combination of consulting services and data-driven solutions.”

Can you see the early origins of Hi Marley?

The Hi Marley Founders stayed at Aon for 7 years after the acquisition but you have to imagine startup life began calling back to them. Who wouldn’t be excited about backing this team? Veterans of the industry, they understood better than anyone what those data-driven solutions in a world going digital would be. What I’m trying to say is that if I asked them about insurance, they’d probably give me the skinny on every premium type ever underwritten. Aon, they knew a lot about them. It’s history, how to execute a roadmap, leadership the whole works, right? But they couldn’t stay forever. They clearly saw a market ripe for disruption through software with the skills to make it happen. These are experienced operators! What better way to help transform the insurance industry than through the best value creation style of our generation, SaaS. So off they went. 

For perspective, this is a big market with a lot of activity. Local Boston based insurance company Duck Creek Technologies (DCT) was just purchased by private equity giant Vista Equity for $2.6B and Guidewire Software (GWRE), another vertical SaaS company building software for insurance companies, generated $800M+ in 2022 top line revenue. Hi Marley has only raised $41.7M to date which gives them exit optionality too. Veteran moves.

Investors love vertical SaaS companies because they build customized products for a very specific market in a way that makes them more embedded with their customer base. Translation – the revenue is stickier & more lovable. I mean predictable. From there you can build out additional product lines to serve that customer base in a deeper way. Hi Marley started out by serving insurance carriers that didn’t have the resources to build in-house solutions but are still being dragged into the digital world. No different than any other legacy industry, these carriers need to compete to retain customers as communication technology rapidly changes. Hello, Hi Marley.

The team has built a ton of features and laid the groundwork to make it easier for new, larger customers to onboard to their platform like Metlife & American Family. They give every customer a dedicated Customer Success Manager. They can set up a pilot in as quick as 1 business day. They’re SOC2 compliant and support opt in & opt out management. They can support translations in 19 languages. And of course the back end ecosystem drives a ton of value – apps, APIs and layers of intelligence that integrate with core systems such as Guidewire and Duck Creek “to deliver critical insights” to the carriers, according to CEO and co-founder Mike Greene.

More recently, they’ve launched “Coaching” which leverages data, AI and workflows to amplify the voice of the customer. For the startup folks reading this, they use machine learning to figure out what messaging resonates with customers so that they can recommend those talking points to adjusters using automation for faster case resolutions and, again, better customer experience.

Finally, like any great software company in the making, this team knows how to measure their performance. Hi Marley drives a 35% call reduction per claim, 4.8/5 average rating per claim, and 3 day reduction in cycle time. That’s a product worth investing in. Shout out to their marketing team!

Operators to Know:

My investigative powers continue to need work so apologies to the Hi Marley team I know I missed many up & coming operators internally

Key Roles To Be Hired:

If I was interviewing here are some questions I’d ask:

  • Could you share some details about the onboarding process & training? As they reach that “mid size” stage and recruit startup employees without insurance backgrounds, they’ll be institutionalizing training and it’s always good to check in that evolution
  • What do you foresee as the biggest challenges scaling the team from 100 to 200 employees? This is growing pain territory for any startup. New tools, processes, people, and of course software are needed navigate this next phase of growth
  • What are the most important roles you’ll be looking to add in 2023 / team(s) that will be growing the fastest? Always critical to uncover where they see their largest areas of investment over the coming year
  • What is the long term vision for the company? With a team this experienced, you would be remiss not to ask where they see the future of insurance technology headed

My most memorable interview as an interviewer was the candidate who came in late, flustered, and asked to borrow my phone charger. They were nice enough to return it…after they took it with them for a week. A little prep…and arriving on time always goes a long way!

We’re optimizing for readability here so to learn more about Hi Marley you’ll have to D.Y.O.R. I’m excited to watch this team bring more insurance companies into the digital age. All policy holders applaud your lovable efforts. See you out there!

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