#183: Laura Bennett & Alex Krooglik (Embrace Pet Insurance) — The Story of A Cleveland Unicorn

Lay of The Land

Laura Bennett and Alex Krooglik, co-founders of Embrace Pet Insurance, which was sold in 2023 for $1.5 billion to JAB Holding Company.

The duo founded Embrace Pet Insurance after graduating from Penn’s Wharton School of Business in 2003 and moving to Cleveland, where they built and grew this e-commerce, specialist insurance company selling pet insurance directly to pet owners — from their first policy sold in October 2006 to insuring over 500,000 pets across the country and handling over 4.6 million claims to date, with more than 1 million in 2023 alone.

Having both stepped away from their business a few years prior, this conversation is a truly reflective one. We cover the crucible moments for the company:

• effectively creating a new market category and overcoming the complex regulations of pet insurance,
• the evolution of their relationship as co-founders,
• the sheer tenacity, persistence, determination and consistency required of entrepreneurship,
• earned lessons on founder equity and company ownership,
• becoming one of Jumpstart’s first investments,
• the significance of immigrants and entrepreneurship in the US,

...and a whole lot more! I believe Laura and Alex’s story is one that should be familiar to far more in Cleveland than it may be, and I’m very excited to share it with you today!

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LINKS:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/krooglik/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurabennett/
https://www.embracepetinsurance.com/

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Past guests include Justin Bibb (Mayor of Cleveland), Pat Conway (Great Lakes Brewing), Steve Potash (OverDrive), Umberto P. Fedeli (The Fedeli Group), Lila Mills (Signal Cleveland), Stewart Kohl (The Riverside Company), Mitch Kroll (Findaway — Acquired by Spotify), and many more.

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