Bitcoin life insurer Meanwhile raises $37.5 million in new round

Bitcoin life insurer Meanwhile said on October 8 it raised $37.5 million, led by Bain Capital Crypto, as more wealthy families outside the United States look for a regulated way to pass bitcoin (BTC) to their heirs.

Meanwhile announced the round in a statement. CoinDesk and the insurance trade outlet Bermuda:Re+ILS reported the same figures. The money came from existing backers, the company said, among them Haun Ventures, Framework Ventures, Pantera Capital, Apollo, Northwestern Mutual Future Ventures and Morgan Creek Digital.

Where the $37.5 million came from

Bain Capital Crypto led the round. It is not a new name on the list. The firm also co-led Meanwhile's $82 million raise in October 2025, and a $40 million Series A came before that, in April 2025. Earlier seed funding included a $19 million round co-led by OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman and former Stripe executive Lachy Groom. Total outside money now runs past $180 million.

Meanwhile did not say whether Altman added to this round, or how the new capital splits between its products. Stefan Cohen, a partner at Bain Capital Crypto, said the company "owns every layer of a regulated life insurer and builds it like an AI-enabled startup."

What Meanwhile sells

Strip away the bitcoin label and the business is a familiar one. Meanwhile is a licensed life insurer, based in Bermuda, that runs its whole book in bitcoin. Premiums go in as bitcoin. Payouts come out as bitcoin. Its reserves, its metrics and its audited accounts are measured in the coin, not in dollars, and policyholder funds sit with regulated custodians. Meanwhile holds that bitcoin for its clients, the opposite of self-custody, where a person keeps the keys.

The Bermuda Monetary Authority granted the company a Class IILT license in 2024, after about 18 months in a regulatory sandbox. Meanwhile says it was the first insurer to hold that license. Its main product for buyers outside the United States, BTC Life 1-Pay, takes a single bitcoin premium and promises a bitcoin death benefit for life. After the first year, a holder can borrow up to 90 percent of the policy's value, with no fixed repayment schedule. That borrow feature resembles other bitcoin-backed loans, which let holders raise cash without selling the coin. A second product, BTC 10-Pay, is aimed at US taxpayers.

Who is actually buying

Wealth succession is the pitch. Co-founder and chief executive Zac Townsend said: "Wealthy families around the world already hold bitcoin. What they haven't had is a regulated way to pass it on." Meanwhile says it has signed 15 brokers since launch, serving clients in places such as Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland, with demand strongest in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Those numbers come from the company. Net long-term underwriting income has already passed its full-year 2025 total, Meanwhile says, and is on track to more than double in 2026. No independent audit of the 2026 figures has been published. The products are also narrow. They are sold to high-net-worth clients in a handful of countries, not to ordinary savers, and the fresh capital came from backers who were already in.

What to watch

Two tests will show whether the demand runs as deep as the pitch. One is an audited set of 2026 numbers, which would check the underwriting growth the company claims. The other is whether new outside investors, rather than existing ones, lead the next round. A regulated bitcoin life insurer is a real thing now. Whether it serves a large market, or a small one for the very rich, is still an open question.