Vesttoo’s former CEO launches Everoak as new investment fund targets insurance policy trades
Yaniv Bertele pivots from general insurance to life settlements following collapse of $1B insurtech unicorn.
Yaniv Bertele, the ousted CEO of collapsed insurtech company Vesttoo, has launched a new investment fund called Everoak Innovations. According to the company’s profile, Everoak is an alternative investment fund that aims to generate returns independently of traditional capital markets.
The company also appears to be developing a secondary market for trading life insurance policies. This niche sector involves transactions between policyholders who wish to sell their life insurance to third parties. The buyer continues to pay the premiums and receives the payout upon the death of the insured. In return, the original policyholder receives a lump sum—typically higher than what they would receive by canceling the policy through the issuing insurer.
This is a business model similar to the one Vesttoo previously explored, although Vesttoo focused primarily on general, auto, and home insurance.
According to Israel’s Registrar of Companies, Bertele owns 100% of Everoak’s shares. The company currently employs ten people.
Bertela was one of the founders—and the public face—of Vesttoo, an insurtech startup established in 2018 along with co-founders Alon Lifshitz and Ben Zickel. In 2022, Vesttoo became a unicorn after raising funds at a valuation of over $1 billion. But by 2023, Calcalist revealed a massive fraud scandal at the company involving forged letters of credit (LOCs) that were used to purchase bundled insurance products through its platform. The scale of the forgeries reached into the billions of dollars.
As a result, Baertele was removed by Vesttoo’s board of directors, which later alleged that he had knowledge of at least some of the forgeries.
Investigations have since pointed to possible collusion between Vesttoo employees and individuals at various banks—primarily in China. Vesttoo also suspects that internal company personnel were aware that the platform could be used to process transactions without genuine LOCs. The company reportedly collected fees on each such transaction.
First published: 17:21, 23.04.25
