Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Lion Street Gets $50M From Austin Ventures

Austin-based Lion Street, a new life insurance firm, said late last week that it has received a $50M commitment from Austin Ventures for funding. According to the company, which is headed by Bob Carter, it is in process of acquiring a multi-state, boutique insurance agency, and is developing distribution partnerships with Transamerica, MetLife/Walnut Street Securities, and ING. The company says it so far has received $5M of that commitment. The new investment seems to match a recent trend at Austin Ventures for $50M investments in rollup companies; the firm has announced similar deals with Silerback Acquisitions, Dachis Group, and Century Payments. Austin Ventures had actually already announced the investment on August 31st with Bob Carter, but at the time, they had not yet named the company. Carter was the co-founder of National Financial partners, and also co-founded PartnersFinancial.