Photo: Tom Werner/Getty Images
Gyde, a newly launched AI-enabled brokerage platform focused on insurance, health and wealth, has acquired national health insurance agency Benavest, which specializes in consumer plans such as individual ACA, Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement (ICHRA) and Medicare.
The deal marks Gyde's second acquisition in two weeks, following its January launch and $60 million funding round, as the company moves to build out its AI-driven brokerage model.
"Gyde is an AI-native brokerage platform that combines an M&A model where we partner with our partners through acquisition in a fairly unique, what we would believe, is kind of an owner-centric acquisition model," Will Johnson, cofounder and CEO of Gyde, told MobiHealthNews.
"And then we pair that model with an AI platform that's built by engineers and technologists from places like Oscar and Stripe and a team of operators that surround our partners with real resources, not just technologically, but also operationally."
Johnson said AI is deeply integrated into Gyde's operations, from the company's proprietary AI products to using external AI products like Anthropic and Gemini.
The company's GydeOS is designed to support brokers with onboarding, meeting preparation and identifying cross-sell opportunities. Its AI assistant, Gia, communicates with clients via SMS and voice to deliver coverage updates, reminders and personalized guidance on behalf of brokers, the company said.
"The whole company is an AI product, from the way that we identify potential partners, diligence those partners, onboard them and integrate them into Gyde's platform and application set, and then ultimately service them after that integration – the entirety of that process, we have been able to AI-enable," Johnson said.
"My mandate to the team is that every single process that we are running needs to be an AI-enabled process. And if we can't do that today, we need a future casted perspective on how we get there in a quarter, and we're doing that across the entire stack of the company."
Gyde's model differs from traditional brokerage acquisitions that often phase out leadership teams over time, Johnson said.
He relayed that Gyde's high-tech, high-touch model is to partner with and provide resources to its acquired entities, rather than dismantling them over months, as Johnson said often happens.
"We actually take the opposite approach, which is, what if we invest in you more and help you navigate this paradigm shift, both technologically, which everybody has kind of talked about and is well-publicized with respect to AI development acceleration, particularly into the services sector like insurance brokerage, and two, frankly, just be a real partner to those entities after the transaction and devote resources to them," Johnson said.
Benavest, founded in 2014, stood out for its leadership, ability to scale and its large distribution infrastructure, Johnson said. He noted that the founders of Gyde had previously worked with Benavest at earlier companies.
"They're focused on consumer health lines, which is something that we kind of grew up in. For Gyde, we will handle Medicare Advantage, individual and employee benefits. Thinking about the first two, they are very much consumer-focused, and this, kind of like, middle, which would be ICHRA, which cuts between the two of them (individual and employee benefits)," Johnson said.
"Benavest was playing in the first three of those – Medicare Advantage, individual and now doing some ICHRA."
Gyde, which is focused on growth rather than cost reduction, aims to help Benavest expand its services and product lines, support strategic partnership growth and foundational back-office support for carrier contracts and relationships, and automate some of the rules for its downline partners.
Johnson said Gyde will assist Benavest in a way that is automated, highly contextualized and relevant to the right consumer.
"My core thesis is that consumerism is going to increasingly play a larger role in healthcare over the next decade. Having a platform that could help service, facilitate and even accelerate that trend was exciting to us, and was one we knew. Usually, you get one or the other," Johnson said.
