Fount

MIT, Sloan School of Management

Industry: InsurTech

MBA Founding Student Name(s): Henk van Biljon (MIT Sloan MBA ’24)

Brief Description of Solution: Fount is building the world’s most intelligent AI insurance marketing platform to help insurance marketers understand which prospects to advertise to, which marketing strategies to deploy, and how much to spend. Through combining actuarial science, AI and marketing technology in one solution, we help insurance carriers and MGAs increase lifetime revenue and decrease acquisition cost through showing the true value of their current and proposed marketing efforts.

Funding Dollars: $1.1m through institutional venture capital and other non-dilutive sources

What led you to launch this venture? My co-founder and I previously built risk and actuarial decisioning software for large insurers and banks. During this time, we saw every day how disconnected data silos and a clutter of software systems led to inefficient decisions, wasting millions of dollars in the process. Marketing and customer acquisition functions face this problem head on and have provided us with an opportunity to solve their headaches with a different approach. With the latest advancements in AI foundation models, we could clearly see a future where insurance marketers have access to a single system that allows them to quickly make hyper-informed strategic decisions. We were committed to building that future.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with venture? Onboarding our first insurance carrier clients and raising a pre-seed round of venture capital from great investors were both big milestones for us. Going through MIT’s three-month delta v startup accelerator and presenting at Demo Day in front of thousands of attendees was another highlight of our journey so far.

What has been the most significant challenge you’ve faced in creating your company and how did you solve it? Balancing and sorting the enormous number of competing priorities that need your time in building a company can be extremely challenging. Having clear alignment on priorities across our team, using repeatable processes for execution and clear focus every day (despite all the noise) has been instrumental.

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? The network, entrepreneurial resources, and support that we gained through MIT  while earning a Sloan MBA has been nothing short of incredible. At MIT, you’re surrounded by the most talented builders, investors, and innovators helping others to build and grow businesses every day. Faculty members who are successful former founders regularly engage you on all aspects of launching a startup. There are many startup competitions, labs and venture studio offerings, and events led by top VCs. All of these opportunities, along with working alongside friends building their own businesses at night and over weekends, has created a startup experience that has been transformative.

What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? Roelof Botha, the managing partner of Sequoia, is a South African actuary who came to the US to pursue his MBA…just as I have. His journey from South Africa to earning his MBA, building PayPal from the early days through an IPO and acquisition, and becoming the managing partner of one of the most illustrious venture capital firms in the world has been an immense inspiration. Showing it is possible to be a highly successful South African in the US through hard work and taking smart risks inspires me and others like myself to pursue our dreams.

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Entrepreneurial Sales, taught by Jim Baum and other team members, was particularly memorable. Better understanding how to discover what truly matters to your clients and structuring, negotiating, and scaling mutually beneficial and sustainable deals was extremely valuable.

What professor made a significant contribution to your plans and why? It would be Professor of the Practice Rama Ramakrishnan and Professor Matthew Rhodes-Kropf. Both successful former tech entrepreneurs, they have been invaluable wells of sound advice on building a startup, product, VC, and entrepreneurial life. I saw my path as an entrepreneur represented as a decision tree with expected payoffs or priced as a Black-Scholes option on a blackboard. Here, the rational choice, given the right conditions, is to take more risk. These images will stay with me forever.

Professor Bill Aulet and Paul Cheek, executive director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, were also pivotal. Their passion, support and industry-leading entrepreneurship thought leadership was immensely helpful in steering our business through the early stages.

How has your local startup ecosystem contributed to your venture’s development and success? Boston/Cambridge houses one of the most tightly knit and powerful startup ecosystems in the world that is characterized by an abundance of technical talent from top universities. Being surrounded by world-class technical talent, an abundance of capital, and a concentration of financial services providers in the Northeast has significantly boosted our early progress.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? I want to become the clear market leader in financial services customer acquisition technologies.

Looking back, what is the biggest lesson you wished you’d known before launching and scaling your venture? That talking to your clients frankly will teach you more about their business problems than countless hours of background research can do. Talk to them more regularly, sooner, and with greater curiosity from Day One.

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