
Nassau Financial Group Expands Insurtech Program with New Capital Commitment
HARTFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nassau Financial Group ('Nassau'), a leader in Connecticut's Insurtech community, today announced it is expanding its Nassau Reimagine program to support early and mid-stage startups with a new $10 million capital commitment. The program will target companies in Insurtech, Fintech, Retiretech, and other related sectors in Nassau's primary business locations, including Connecticut and New York.
'We are excited to expand our Nassau Reimagine program with additional capital and resource support. Our program has supported over 100 startups in our communities since its inception in 2019, as a first-of-its-kind among Hartford-based insurance companies. Through this added commitment, we look forward to enabling technological innovation for the insurance industry with new companies in our communities,' said Phil Gass, Chairman and CEO of Nassau.
Established in 2019, Nassau Reimagine has provided resources, support, and connections to more than 100 startups and scaleups who are actively transforming the Insurtech and Retiretech landscapes. It also has led a number of Retiretech conferences, Hartford Innovation Week, and the TalentBridge Program in partnership with University of Connecticut. The capital commitment is the latest expansion of Nassau's mission to advance innovation in the insurance industry.
In addition to leveraging relationships within its existing Reimagine network, Nassau will work with key public and private constituents in identifying investment opportunities, including state economic development programs, academic institutions, industry organizations and other accelerators and incubators.
Interested startups can learn more at Nassau Reimagine.
About Nassau Financial Group
Based in Hartford, Connecticut, Nassau Financial Group is a growth focused and digitally enabled financial services company with a fully integrated platform across insurance and asset management. Nassau's fixed annuities provide comprehensive and customizable retirement solutions, delivered with advanced digital capabilities and a team dedicated to delivering industry-leading service. Nassau Asset Management LLC and its subsidiaries oversee the assets of Nassau's insurance companies and offer specialty investment strategies to third-party clients. These strategies include public and private debt, CLO debt and equity, real estate debt and equity, and alternatives. Nassau was founded in 2015 and has grown to $24.8 billion in assets under management, $1.7 billion in total adjusted capital, and about 370,000 policies and contracts as of December 31, 2024. For more information, visit nfg.com.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
30 minutes ago
- Yahoo
‘A team that I'm proud of': How Irving Oil's John Laidlaw built an East Coast legal legacy
by Jim Middlemiss John Laidlaw never imagined he would spend the twilight years of his career navigating Ireland's complex energy markets, but sometimes the best opportunities arrive when you least expect them. The 2025 recipient of the CGCA's BLG Stephen Sigurdson Lifetime Achievement Award made what he calls 'a leap of faith' in 2016, leaving a 32-year partnership at law firm Cox & Palmer in Saint John, N.B. to become chief legal officer at Canadian energy giant Irving Oil Ltd. 'I was at a point in my life where my youngest of four was wrapping up her undergrad degree, and we were empty nesters,' recalled Laidlaw, now in his 10th year at the Saint John-based energy company. 'You start to look around and say, 'Maybe I've gone as far as I'm going to go in private practice, and maybe I should think about what lies ahead.'' The conversation that changed his trajectory began innocently enough — a casual discussion with Irving Oil's then-president Ian Whitcomb about whether he would move in-house. For someone who had built his reputation as a corporate commercial lawyer handling everything from public-private partnerships to advising clients in aquaculture, fisheries and agriculture, a move to the oil and gas industry represented a dramatic pivot in the latter stages of his career. 'Those around me whose judgment I respected were all of the view that this was something I should really think about,' said Laidlaw. 'Irving Oil has a stellar reputation, and opportunities like that don't always come along when you're in your late 50s.' He admits it was a huge change, likening it to drinking from a firehose. Fortunately, he learned early in his career how to be a quick study. 'You never stop learning in any business, but particularly so being a corporate commercial lawyer. Whoever walks in the door, you've got to learn their business fairly quickly to be able to provide good, sensible and competent advice,' he said. The company supported him through the transition. 'They were very patient with me as I got up to speed. This is a very fascinating, complicated business, and one where you never stop learning.' The transition from external counsel to corporate insider proved transformative. Within months, Laidlaw found himself at the centre of Irving's historic expansion into Ireland, advising on the 2016 acquisition of that country's only oil refinery from Phillips 66. The Whitegate facility purchase was followed in 2019 by Irving's acquisition of the Tedcastle group, which operates under the Top Oil brand. 'The great thing about being here is you get to see things end to end,' Laidlaw said, contrasting his in-house role with private practice where deals concluded when documents were signed. Now, he says, 'when it's all said and done, you get to hang out at the party' after the deal and figure out how to 'integrate this and make it all work.' Irving Oil, founded in 1924 and still family-owned, operates Canada's largest refinery and has 900 fuelling stations spanning eastern Canada and New England. When Laidlaw arrived, Irving's legal department consisted of just his predecessor and one other lawyer. Today, he oversees eight legal professionals plus a 'very strong regulatory compliance team' — reflecting both the company's growth and the increasing complexity of energy sector regulations. 'I've built a team here that I'm proud of,' Laidlaw said, noting that four of his current team members followed him from Cox & Palmer. 'Many are lawyers and support staff who believed in what we were building here.' For Laidlaw, who was called to the New Brunswick bar in 1984 after earning his law degree from the University of New Brunswick, the most rewarding aspect of his career has been developing talent. During his Cox & Palmer years, he served as an instructor for the commercial law portion of the New Brunswick bar admission course for nearly 20 years and maintained an open-door policy for junior lawyers seeking guidance. He believes strongly in mentorship and coaching, because that's how he learned. 'I had some tremendous, mentors that cultivated me and brought me along,' he said. 'As you get a bit older, you realize the positive impact it had and so in my view, it's a duty or an obligation. I like to think the profession is pretty good at that, but it's something that everybody has to play a part.' Laidlaw's community involvement has also been extensive. He has served as chair of the Saint John area New Brunswick Provincial Mental Health Tribunal, the Centracare Foundation and the Horizon Health Network, one of the province's two health authorities. 'I was brought up in a household where you were expected to give back,' he explained. 'To whom much is given, much is expected.' At 67, Laidlaw shows no signs of slowing down. 'I'm obviously in the downward slope given my age, but I don't intend to leave Irving Oil anytime soon,' he said. 'I'm not sure I would ever fully stop doing something.' His advice to young lawyers reflects the humility that colleagues consistently note: be the first to arrive and last to leave, see everything as an opportunity, and remember that success often comes down to being in the right place at the right time — then having the courage to walk through the door when it opens. Irving Oil president steps down amid strategic review Arthur Irving out as chairman of Irving Oil For Laidlaw, that door opened nearly a decade ago in Saint John, leading to what he describes as some of the most fulfilling years of his legal career. 'It sort of reignited things for me at a point where I wasn't quite ready to wind down,' he said. 'This has been absolutely wonderful.' Sign in to access your portfolio


Business Wire
33 minutes ago
- Business Wire
Hansen Technologies Supports Major Transformation for Telefónica Germany
MELBOURNE, Australia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hansen Technologies (ASX:HSN), a global provider of software and services to the communications, media, energy, and utilities industries, is pleased to announce today that its transformation partnership with Telefónica Germany, a leading communications services providers (CSPs) in Germany, is progressing successfully. In a collaborative effort of more than 3,700 team members, millions of subscribers have already been migrated to a new technology stack, underpinned by products from the Hansen Suite for Communications, Technology & Media. Many more are to follow. Fundamental to this transformation, which is ongoing, has been the building of an entirely new technology stack with around 80 applications in the cloud. This represents a massive end-to-end transformation initiative, with a key part of the business and operational backbone supported by the Hansen Suite. Competing in one of Europe's most dynamic and largest communications markets, Telefónica Germany serves more than 45 million active mobile connections. The German market is defined by competition where rapid innovation, cost efficiency, and customer experience differentiation are crucial for success. Market forces such as 5G, the rise of the Internet of Things, and an increasingly digital-first consumer base, demand that any CSP modernise its IT architecture or risk falling behind more agile competitors. Telefónica Germany thus started early to completely modernise its IT infrastructure, in order to manage the growing complexity of services and systems even better – while ensuring long-term sustainability. By partnering with Hansen, Telefónica Germany has been able to deploy a new cloud-native, modular architecture for multi-brand operations, and position itself as a digital-first, omnichannel leader. Leveraging Hansen Catalog, Hansen CPQ, Hansen Order Management (OM), and Hansen Portfolio, the transformation has begun delivering significant results, including time-time-to-market reductions for new product introductions, reduced IT costs, and enhanced scalability. Mallik Rao, Chief Technology and Enterprise Officer, Telefónica Germany, commented: 'To thrive and continue to succeed in Germany, one of the largest communications markets in Europe, we took a bold approach and fundamentally reimagined and reinvented our technology infrastructure with a ground-up mindset. It involved challenging legacy systems and accelerating innovation. With our ongoing digital transformation, we are going to significantly improve time-to-market and customer experience across all our customer segments. The Hansen team are the ideal partner to support us addressing our challenges and chart a new way forward for our company to succeed in the digital, 5G era.' Scott Weir, President of Communications & Media at Hansen, commented:"To date, the work we have undertaken to enable enterprise-wide transformation for Telefónica Germany, on a massive nationwide scale, remains a landmark transformation project for the Hansen team, over the course of our fifty-year history. With Telefónica Germany embarking on a radical, foundational transformation – unprecedented in scale and among the biggest in the world – the initiative undoubtedly called for architecting a B/OSS infrastructure that could support future business needs and enable agility in innovation. By investing in a modular and scalable technology stack from Hansen, Telefónica Germany is not only ensuring operational efficiency but also future-proofing its technology infrastructure and thus, remaining competitive in a rapidly evolving digital ecosystem.' The Hansen Suite for Communications, Technology & Media enables service providers to create and deliver new business models through accelerated product innovation. Hansen, together with Telefónica Germany, will be taking the stage at this year's DTW Ignite event in Copenhagen June 17 th at 2pm on Stage A to discuss this significant transformation program. For further information about Hansen, please visit About Hansen Technologies Hansen Technologies (ASX: HSN) is a leading global software and services provider for the energy, utilities, communications, and media industries. Hansen serves customers in over 80 countries, helping them to deliver new products and services, manage and analyse customer data, and control critical revenue management and customer support processes. For more information, visit About Telefónica Germany Telefónica Germany is a leading full-service provider of telecommunications services for private and business customers. The portfolio of the core brand O2 and various secondary and partner brands includes traditional telephony and internet connections, as well as innovative digital services in the area of the Internet of Things and data analysis. In mobile communications, Telefónica Germany manages more than 45 million mobile lines. In the fixed network, Telefónica Germany offers its customers leading technological diversity and geographical availability in Germany. In the 2024 financial year, the company generated revenue of 8.5 billion euros, with around 7,500 employees. The company is majority-owned by Spanish telecommunications group Telefónica S.A., one of the largest telecommunications groups in the world. For more information, visit


Business Wire
42 minutes ago
- Business Wire
Herringbone Digital Acquires Hennessey Digital, Expanding Platform into Legal Marketing Vertical
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Trinity Hunt Partners-backed Herringbone Digital, a digital marketing platform partnering with best-in-class local digital marketing agencies, service providers, and tech-enabled solutions, today announced the acquisition of Hennessey Digital, a leading digital marketing agency serving law firms nationwide. This strategic acquisition marks Herringbone Digital's first investment in the legal marketing vertical and expands upon its multi-industry strategy to build a leading digital marketing platform with best-in-class functions across the dental, legal, healthcare, and home services sectors. Founded in 2015 by Jason Hennessey, Hennessey Digital has established a reputation as a white-glove service provider specializing in SEO and other complementary digital marketing solutions for law firms, with a particular focus on personal injury practices. The Valencia, California-based agency operates with a fully remote team of 125 professionals and has been recognized as one of Fortune's 50 Best Workplaces in Advertising & Marketing. The company will continue to operate under its established brand, and all members of Hennessey Digital's executive team will continue in their current roles, ensuring continuity of service and company culture. "This partnership represents a transformative new chapter for Hennessey Digital and our team," said Jason Hennessey, Founder and CEO of Hennessey Digital. "In a highly-fragmented industry with many strong players, we are fortunate to join forces with partners who understand our vision and will work alongside us to become the undisputed leader in legal marketing, offering the most comprehensive suite of solutions for law firms looking to grow. With Herringbone's support, we can preserve the brand identity and business structure we've worked hard to build while gaining the resources to expand our capabilities. We are proud to be part of an innovative movement alongside Raj and his team to better serve our client base and create new opportunities for Hennessey." The acquisition reflects the evolving legal marketing landscape, where law firms seek comprehensive digital solutions. Hennessey Digital serves clients nationwide, providing SEO, digital PR, PPC management, and web design services. Joining the platform enables Hennessey Digital to better leverage AI advancements and integrated capabilities across Herringbone Digital's multi-vertical strategy, providing enhanced value to its clients. "Jason and the Hennessey Digital team have built one of the most respected and results-driven agencies in the legal marketing space," said Raj Ramanan, CEO of Herringbone Digital. "Their unparalleled expertise in helping personal injury law firms scale, combined with their drive for innovation and client-first mindset, makes them the perfect cornerstone for our legal vertical. This partnership represents a significant milestone in our mission to bring together visionary founders and build a category-defining, fully comprehensive marketing platform in the industry. We're excited to work together to redefine what's possible for legal marketing." For more information about Herringbone Digital's strategy and M&A opportunities, visit ABOUT HENNESSEY DIGITAL Hennessey Digital is a leading digital marketing agency providing white-glove services to law firms nationwide. Founded in 2015 by Jason Hennessey, the company delivers SEO, digital PR, PPC management, and web design services primarily to personal injury law firms. With a fully remote team of 125 professionals, Hennessey Digital has built a reputation for excellence in the legal marketing industry and has been recognized as one of Fortune's 50 Best Workplaces in Advertising & Marketing. For more information, visit ABOUT HERRINGBONE DIGITAL Herringbone Digital partners with best-in-class local digital marketing agencies, service providers, and tech-enabled solutions run by experienced leaders. Founded in 2024, the platform focuses on serving businesses in the dental, legal, home services, and healthcare sectors. Backed by Trinity Hunt Partners, Herringbone Digital is building a leading platform through strategic acquisitions and organic growth initiatives. For more information, visit ABOUT TRINITY HUNT PARTNERS Trinity Hunt Partners is a growth-oriented private equity firm with over $2 billion of assets under management focused on building leading B2B and B2C services companies. Trinity Hunt's mission is to provide the talent and strategic, operational, and financial capabilities needed to build entrepreneurial services companies into market leaders. Trinity Hunt was ranked tenth amongst all firms worldwide on HEC-Dow Jones' most recent Top Small-Cap Buyout Firms List (2024), which ranks firms based on their performance for investors across funds raised over a 10-year period i. For more information, visit