Health benefits finance · Health savings accounts
Lively
A San Francisco company that rebuilt the health savings account around the person who has to use one, then sold that machinery to banks and employers. It says $2 billion now sits on its platform. It is not a bank, and that distinction carries the weight.
The copay she stopped paying
“Back in 2015, my mother casually mentioned that she’d stopped taking essential medication after her insurance company significantly increased her copay,” Alex Cyriac wrote years later. She had Medicare. He had assumed that settled it. It did not.
He took the story to Shobin Uralil, a childhood friend who had just become a father. Between routine infant care and a surprise diagnosis, Uralil and his wife had been to the doctor more times than they could count in the four months since their son was born, and the copays kept coming on top of a high deductible.
Two problems, opposite ends of a life, same shape. The instrument they landed on was the health savings account: money in before tax, growth untaxed, withdrawals untaxed when spent on care. The question was why so few people with a high deductible plan were using one.
An account nobody wanted to run
The answer was in who ran them. HSAs sat mostly with banks that treated the product as a side line, on software built a decade earlier, with fees that ate the balance a person was trying to grow. The founders called hundreds of HSA holders before building anything. The complaints came back consistent: dated technology, and being nickel and dimed.
“We saw an opportunity to approach it differently and put the consumer first,” Cyriac told TechCrunch in 2021.
The prize was not small. Devenir, the research firm the industry uses to count itself, put HSAs at nearly $174 billion across 41.7 million accounts at the end of 2025, up 19 percent in a year.
Two friends and a phone line
Cyriac, described by Inc. in 2024 as having a background in software, operations and sales, incorporated in Delaware in 2016. The first SEC filing records the original name: HealtheeSavings, Inc. Y Combinator took the company into its Winter 2017 batch.
The method was unglamorous. The two founders served as the first two support representatives and worked through their first thousand account holders by hand. Accounts were free for individuals; employers paid $2.95 per employee per month, published, with nothing underneath. Growth came sideways, from people who already had an HSA elsewhere and moved it.
Who is actually holding the money
This is the part most coverage skips, and for a company holding other people’s medical savings it is the whole question.
Lively says it plainly: “Lively is not an FDIC or NCUA insured financial institution.” Cash balances sit at partner banks and credit unions, where they may qualify for pass through insurance. The card is somebody else’s paper too. The current rate page carries the line “HSA card issued by Choice Financial Group, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license from Visa.”
What Lively holds is a fiduciary licence. On March 22, 2021 the IRS approved Lively, Inc. of 77 Geary Street, San Francisco as a nonbank trustee under Treasury Regulation 1.408-2(e), and it is still on the list the IRS published on April 1, 2026. That approval lets a technology company hold the trustee seat while the deposits live somewhere regulated.
The pitch to banks says the same from the other side. Partners are told they are “guaranteed to hold all core deposits, and keep interchange, fee revenue, and net interest margin from their HSA business segment.” BMO, which sells an HSA delivered by Lively, tells customers that “BMO Health Savings Accounts, delivered by Lively are provided by Lively Inc. and are subject to their approval.” Lively runs the account. The bank keeps the money and the spread.
One newer product steps outside that. HSA Boost pays 1.06 percent at the top balance tier against 0.12 percent on the insured tier, as of August 1, 2025, and the company states the trade: “HSA Boost is a stable value investment allocated to an interest-bearing group annuity contract.” Not a deposit, not federally insured, opt in only.
Consumer app, bank channel, then AI
The capital arrived in three steps, all on file: $15.2 million in late 2018, a $27 million Series B led by Costanoa Ventures in October 2019, then $80 million in October 2021 led by B Capital Group. In the four months before that round Lively signed BMO Harris, won the IRS designation and passed $500 million in assets.
Assets crossed $1 billion in March 2023 and $2 billion in May 2025. Inc. ranked it 148th among fastest growing private companies in 2024, then 327th in 2025. On June 16, 2026 Lively launched Axis, an AI layer across the benefits stack, and on August 4, 2026 added an assistant for HR administrators.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Fiduciary standing | Listed on the IRS roll of approved nonbank trustees at 77 Geary Street, San Francisco, approval date 3/22/2021, still there on April 1, 2026. | Public record |
| Who holds the deposits | Lively is not an FDIC or NCUA insured institution. Partner banks hold the cash and keep interchange, fees and net interest margin. Card issued by Choice Financial Group under a Visa licence. | Company-stated |
| Uninsured yield tier | HSA Boost is a stable value investment in a group annuity contract, outside deposit insurance. Aug 1, 2025: insured 0.02 to 0.12 percent APY, Boost 0.15 to 1.06 percent. | Company-stated |
| Assets | $500M in mid 2021, $1B in Mar 2023, $2B in May 2025. Against Devenir’s $174B market at year-end 2025, a little over one percent of US HSA assets. | Company-stated |
| Revenue growth | Inc. 5000: No. 148 in 2024 on 2,380 percent three year growth, No. 327 in 2025 on 1,204 percent. The ranking is percentage growth, with no dollar base published. | Independent |
| Capital raised | Form D filings in 2018, 2019 and 2021 report $117.07M sold. The company said more than $120 million in 2021; CB Insights lists $122.32M. Nothing filed since Oct 25, 2021. | Public record |
| Morningstar rating | Lively footnotes its top-rated claim to Morningstar’s 2024 HSA Landscape. Morningstar’s 2025 summary says Fidelity remains the only provider with a high overall assessment. | Differs from the rater |
| The $1 billion timetable | In October 2021 the CEO said the company would cross $1 billion early the next year. Its own milestone post is dated March 29, 2023. | Later than stated |
| Named employer customers | BMO is confirmed on BMO’s own site. Lively cites 98 percent employer retention but names no employer roster. | Not found |
Read plainly: the custodial story checks out. The IRS approval is real, the deposit arrangements are disclosed rather than blurred, and the fee schedule runs down to the $24 annual investment access fee below a $3,000 cash balance. The scale is company-stated, and the two outside scoreboards disagree: Inc. confirms the growth rate, Morningstar still reserves its top mark for Fidelity.
What to watch
- A fourth Form D. Nothing since October 2021 is a long silence for a company this size.
- How much cash migrates into HSA Boost, and whether holders grasp that it leaves deposit insurance.
- The next Devenir survey, where the top ten custodian ranking either holds or slips.
- Whether Axis earns revenue from banks and employers, or stays a feature of existing accounts.
- Named employers. The bank partners are public; the employer book is not.
In their words
“Back in 2015, my mother casually mentioned that she’d stopped taking essential medication after her insurance company significantly increased her copay.”
Alex Cyriac, co-founder and CEO, company blog, 2022 · Company
“We saw an opportunity to approach it differently and put the consumer first.”
Alex Cyriac to TechCrunch, 2021 · Independent
“We are growing 4x faster than legacy incumbents and will cross $1B in assets early next year, becoming the fastest HSA provider to do so, ever.”
Alex Cyriac, Series C announcement, 2021 · Company release
“Our hypothesis proved to be true: When people have their first experience with us, that’s usually enough to boost their confidence and bring their HSA assets to Lively.”
Shobin Uralil, co-founder and COO, company blog, 2023 · Company
“We’re proud of this accomplishment, but as we grow we’re dedicated to continuing to provide a superior HSA experience at a fair cost.”
Shobin Uralil, $2 billion announcement, 2025 · Company release
“HSAs are increasingly the financial layer connecting consumers to the health brands and services they rely on most.”
Shobin Uralil, HSA Spend Report, 2026 · Company release
“Great AI support was not something that we even thought to ask about, and so one of the greatest surprises of working with Lively has been their AI feature.”
Megan Peterson, people operations at Spark, SHRM case study, 2026 · Customer
“Don’t fully turn over all of your operations to the bot.”
Megan Peterson, on Lively’s AI assistant, SHRM case study, 2026 · Customer
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordNonbank Trustees Approved as of April 1, 2026
- Public recordForm D, Lively, Inc., previous name HealtheeSavings, Inc.
- Public recordForm D, Lively, Inc.
- Independent2025 Year-End Devenir HSA Research Report
- IndependentThe 2025 HSA Report on HSA providers
- IndependentLively is building the modern health savings account
- IndependentHow This Founder Is Reinventing the Health Savings Account
- IndependentInc. 5000 honoree, No. 148
- CustomerAI in total rewards, Megan Peterson of Spark on Lively
- PartnerHealth Savings Account, delivered by Lively
- CompanyLively Raises $80 Million Series C
- CompanyWhy We Started Lively
- CompanyInterest rates and HSA Boost disclosures
- CompanyHSA partnership solutions for financial institutions
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
