There are funding announcements, and then there are the ones that feel like someone just turned the lights on in a room the industry forgot it was sitting in. Bennie securing a $50M strategic investment from LNC Partners is exactly that moment. LNC Partners, guided by Matthew Kelty, does not back momentum for entertainment value. They back businesses built on fundamentals, repeatability and a vision that scales without leaving clients in the dust. Their move signals something simple. Bennie is no longer the upstart teaching the benefits world new tricks. It is the operator redefining what employers should expect from a 50-state brokerage in 2026 and beyond.
This story started in 2019 when Matt Straz built Bennie to prove the benefits experience should not feel like a scavenger hunt. Years later, after establishing the foundation and setting the tone, he shifted into the Chairman role and passed the CEO seat to Brett Davis in July 2025. That transition mattered. Brett Davis is the kind of leader who can translate the alphabet soup of insurance into strategy, bringing a decade of Cigna experience and the rare ability to scale revenue without compromising the humanity that gives a +75 NPS real weight. He is a reminder that expertise is not a buzzword when you have the licenses, scars and track record to prove it.
What Bennie has assembled is not a tech layer on an old brokerage model. It is an ecosystem. 100K+ employees rely on the Bennie App for clarity. HR teams lean on Bennie Insights to track utilization patterns instead of guessing. The Ask Bennie concierge has become the quiet hero for workers untangling claims and coverage puzzles. Better Health Plan, powered by the acquisition of People 1st Health Strategies, now spans 35+ states and gives employers a self-funded path with real financial upside. This is not theoretical progress. It is measurable impact, backed by employers saving thousands monthly and shedding administrative hours like outdated skin.
None of this lands without a leadership bench built for long-haul velocity. CFO Katie Bronnenkant brings experience honed across 7 funding rounds at Namely. CTO Daniel Leslie, CISSP and MIT-trained, ensures the platform grows without sacrificing security. COO Greg Autuori, who has lived the operations grind from Namely to Bennie, knows exactly where the friction lives and how to erase it.
LNC Partners did not step in to simply fuel what is already working. They stepped in because the employee benefits market, heading toward $78.21B globally and $18.93B in the U.S. by 2034, is ripe for a firm that treats modernization as a responsibility rather than a tagline. Bennie is that firm.
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