Bestow
Bestow is a life and annuity insurance platform that helps carriers launch products faster and reduce costs. The company has raised $303M, including a Series D in May 2025, and employs 392 people.
The growth story
Bestow grew from 223 to 392 employees between 2021 and 2026, raising $303M along the way, most recently a Series D in May 2025.
About
Bestow provides software for life insurance carriers to develop and manage annuity products more efficiently. Its platform aims to reduce development time and operational costs for insurers.
The company has raised $303M in funding, with its latest Series D round closing in May 2025. With 392 employees, it draws talent primarily from financial services and insurance technology firms.
Founders and leadership
Engineering is the largest function with 70 employees. The leadership team comes from a mix of insurance and fintech backgrounds, though specific executive details aren't provided in the data.
The Bestow org chart
Melbourne O'Banion (Co-Founder and CEO) leads 59 mapped leaders with 12 direct reports. Click +N to expand a team; names link to the person’s public profile.
Departments, and which ones grew
Headcount by function: Engineering 85 (+44% YoY), Information Technology 47 (+68% YoY), Operations 35 (+35% YoY), Business Development 31 (0% YoY), Customer Success and Support 21 (+110% YoY), Product Management 21 (+62% YoY).
Talent flow
Bestow recruits heavily from insurance and financial services companies, with RetailMeNot, USAA, and Northwestern Mutual being top talent sources. Alumni frequently move to fintech startups like Bevel or return to insurers like Swiss Re.
Most common previous employers of Bestow staff: RetailMeNot (8), USAA (7), Northwestern Mutual (6), Haven Technologies (5), IBM (5), Accenture (4). Former Bestow employees most often moved to Bevel (6), Swiss Re (5), Simpli.fi (4), Fidelity Investments (3), Mozilla (2), Redfin (2).
Alumni worth knowing
The Bestow mafia
Bestow alumni have founded 13 companies, including The Ridgeback (25 staff) and Bevel (13 staff), showing strong entrepreneurial spillover from the firm.
14Matt Murphy, MBA, was Head of Carrier Partnerships until 2022Adrian Warwick, was VP, Marketing Technology & Operations until 2025Bo Hu, was General Manager, Direct to Consumer until 2025Nate Ollestad, was Interim Head of Recruiting until 2022Adam Boender, was Chief Product Officer until 2025Ankita P., was Leading AI and Data Science Products until 2023
Ellen Sutton, was Director, Product Management until 2026
Eric Albee, was Senior Engineering Manager until 2025
Ricardo Avila, was Senior Technical Program Manager until 2023
Scott Tsuchiyama, was Senior Software Engineering Manager until 2021
Jeff Israel, was Director Of Engineering until 2022
Clay Houllion, was Lead Engineer until 2019
Jon Kinder, was Director Of Analytics until 2022
Brittney Burgett, was VP, Communications until 2022Hiring now
Web traffic
Traffic mix: 9% direct, 7% search, 7% social, 0% paid.
What this company is made of
Most common skills at Bestow: Leadership (111), Microsoft Office (105), Microsoft Excel (91), Python (Programming Language) (82), SQL (81), JavaScript (78), Customer Service (78), Management (77).
Where the team actually sits
Bestow people are concentrated in Texas, United States (54), California, United States (19), United States (14), Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area (8).
Search footprint
Bestow attracts about 6,183 organic search visits a month, traffic worth roughly $7K a month if bought through ads. It gained 28 ranking keywords and lost 25 in the last period.
What employees say
- Compensation
- 3.90 / 5
- Career opportunities
- 3.50 / 5
- Senior management
- 2.80 / 5
- Work-life balance
- 3.30 / 5
Frequently asked
Bestow has 392 employees as of September 2026.
Bestow has raised $303M in total, most recently a Series D round in May 2025.
Bestow was founded in 2017 by Jonathan Abelmann, Melbourne O'Banion.
Melbourne O'Banion (Co-Founder and CEO) sits at the top of Bestow's reporting structure, with 12 direct reports.
The most common previous employers of current Bestow staff are RetailMeNot (8 people), USAA (7 people), Northwestern Mutual (6 people).
Former Bestow employees most often move to Bevel (6), Swiss Re (5), Simpli.fi (4).
At least 13 companies have a founder who previously worked at Bestow, including The Ridgeback, Bevel, TALNT Team.
Bestow attracts about 6,183 organic search visits a month, worth roughly $7K a month in equivalent ad spend.
The most common skills among Bestow staff are Leadership, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Excel, Python (Programming Language), SQL.
Bestow staff are concentrated in Texas, United States (54), California, United States (19), United States (14).
Bestow has about 85 people in Engineering, up 44% over the past year, as of September 2026.
Bestow has about 47 people in Information Technology, up 68% over the past year, as of September 2026.
Computed from 216 current and 260 former Bestow profiles, as of September 2026. Source: Crustdata.
Build this for any company
Every number on this page came from the Crustdata API. Point the MCP at a company and get the same org chart, alumni list and talent flow in one prompt.