Inclined was founded in 2020 by Mark Shaw, Josh Wyss and Graham Gerlach to make borrowing against whole life insurance policies more accessible. The startup digitizes time‑intensive operations involved in lending against whole‑life cash value and aims to increase lending penetration by offering lower rates and greater efficiency. The article cites roughly $1.1 trillion in cash value in U.S. whole life policies, with a current lending market of about $150 billion — Inclined’s initial opportunity. Inclined is live with Mechanics Bank (about $20 billion in AUM) and currently has several million dollars on its platform. The company describes its business as countercyclical and a very safe form of lending, and says the product opens refinancing and refinancing‑like options to more policyholders. Inclined has raised a total of $19 million since its 2020 inception to build out its technology and scale.

Total raised

$15M

Funding rounds

1

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Sep 2022