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Pulse Point Presentation

DES MOINES RECAP

THE CHAIR:
DES MOINES RECAP

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Six Founders, twenty-plus Funders, and three days that proved the right room can happen anywhere. Des Moines, you did not disappoint!

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Meet Our Des Moines Funders

The Funders

DES MOINES

Founder Overviews

Xcela, Inc

Medical records in hours; Summaries in minutes; Cited answers in a second

Xcela builds AI for life insurance underwriting where evidence matters as much as speed. The platform retrieves and summarizes attending physician statements, flags NIGO issues early, supports risk classification, and lets underwriters ask questions of the case file with click-through citations to the underlying pages. Founded by an advanced-markets practitioner and an enterprise engineering leader, Xcela gives carriers and distributors faster decisions they can actually audit.

bQuest, Inc.

Powering the future of aging and longevity planning through financial advisors

bQuest is a Care Intelligence Platform that helps financial advisors support clients through aging, caregiving, healthcare, and longevity planning. We combine AI-powered guidance, Care Concierge services, and a national network of vetted care providers into one integrated platform. Unlike consumer-facing solutions, bQuest is embedded within trusted financial advisor relationships, enabling firms to deliver holistic planning while creating a scalable new infrastructure for supporting families through life’s most complex transitions.

Turnqey Labs

A data connectivity gap between legacy infrastructure and a tokenized future

Turnqey is the operating layer bridging traditional and onchain capital in a single integration. Reconciled holdings, tax lots, transaction history, portfolio intelligence, and compliance-ready data delivered through one normalized contract. Turnqey provides a unified view for wealth management firms

 

PulsePoint

Passionately focused on building the future of L&A

PulsePoint is the AI-native platform for life and annuity distribution. Kyra, our autonomous agent workforce, works the entire lifecycle, from recruitment through commissions and inforce, governed by PulseConnect and Pulse360, the harness where her autonomy is configured, supervised, and put to work. PulsePoint is the only platform where the AI workforce, the system of record, and the governance layer were built as one thing, on a data spine designed for AI from the first record.

Vamrah

AI for Document-Centric Processes, Starting with Employee Benefits

Employee Benefits RFP processing relies on experts interpreting complex, unstructured documents (census files, benefit plan docs, rate exhibits, claims and experience reports, invoices, applications, vendor proposals), often requiring tens of hours per RFP. Vamrah’s matchRFX platform uses Agentic AI and domain-specific ontologies to automate and optimize these processes for carriers, brokers, GAs & PEOs – ingesting documents, extracting, analyzing and reconciling data with high accuracy, and delivering actionable outputs in minutes instead of days.

Helm Life

Intergenerational Wealth Management designed around the inheritance moment

Helm uses AI to build the intergenerational relationship layer between carriers, distributors, policyowners, and beneficiaries. All so that families can smartly reinvest claims proceeds.

Snapshots

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QUOTES

From the Attendees

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These events continue to evolve and get better and better.

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You are all rock stars! Absolutely LOVE the work you do and the community you've built and will continue to grow. I am SO EXCITED for the next one!

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The lineup of funders is EXTREMELY impressive, and the setup allowed for some great peer-to-peer networking and sharing.

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Great to be able to sit with like-minded people on the first night, but even better to visit with Founders and Funders over dinner and cocktails.

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Amazing event overall! A+

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I was incredibly impressed by the group James brought together and the thought that went into creating the experience. I'm very grateful I had the opportunity to be part of it.

Est. 1919 · Des Moines, Iowa

HOTEL FORT DES MOINES

A century of stories, one remarkable address

Famous Guests
Scandals & Secrets
Firsts & Innovations
The Beginning
1922
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1922

Helen Keller rang in the New Year here, staying at the hotel while in Des Moines for performances over New Year's Eve.

1927
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1927

Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig had breakfast here before an exhibition game. Two of baseball's greatest, at the same table, in Des Moines.

1927
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1927

Charles Lindbergh hosted a banquet here after his famous transatlantic flight. The menu featured boneless squab — reportedly a rare Des Moines delicacy at the time.

1933
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1933

Amelia Earhart visited the hotel to speak about her solo flight across the Atlantic — a rare chance for Iowans to hear her story firsthand.

1947
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1947

Mae West stayed here during her performance of "Come on Up" at the KRNT Radio Theater. One imagines she made an impression on the staff.

1959
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1959

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev occupied the Presidential Suite during the height of the Cold War. This hotel has seen history made.

1960
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1960

JFK, LBJ, and Hubert Humphrey all attended dinner here and held a meeting on farm policy — three future or sitting presidents under one roof.

1980
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1980

Elizabeth Taylor stayed here during a Des Moines appearance. Hollywood glamour, right here in the heartland.

1980
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1980

Elizabeth Taylor stayed here during a Des Moines appearance. Hollywood glamour, right here in the heartland.

2003
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2003

Cher requested her own personal mattress be placed in room #1025. The hotel obliged. Room 1025 has never quite been the same.

2008
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2008

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both stayed here during the Iowa caucuses — rivals for the presidency, sharing the same address for a night.

1939
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1939

Police raided the Log Cabin Room on the 11th floor, seizing liquor and gambling equipment. The tip reportedly came from the men's own wives.

1927
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1927

When Lindbergh dined here post-transatlantic flight, he reportedly insisted on serving boneless squab, an extravagance that raised eyebrows across Iowa.

1959
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1959

The FBI monitored Khrushchev's stay closely. Guests on nearby floors reportedly had no idea who was sleeping down the hall.

1971
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1971

President Nixon greeted supporters in the lobby during his stay — a reminder that this hotel has always been where Iowa's political drama plays out.

1919
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1919

When it opened, every single room had a bathtub, purified chilled circulating water, and a window. Unheard of luxury for its era.

1938
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1938

The hotel announced the first air-conditioned guest room in Des Moines, a genuine technological milestone that made front-page news.

1953
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1953

100 rooms received TV sets in what was reportedly the largest single installation of televisions in Iowa at the time. The fee to operate yours? 25 cents.

1982
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1982

Governor Terry Branstad nominated the hotel to the National Register of Historic Places, cementing its place in Iowa's official history.

1919
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1919

The hotel opened on July 15, 1919, built for approximately $1.5 million and designed by the architectural firm Proudfoot, Bird & Rawson.

1919
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1919

Its opening was a statement of ambition: every room had a private bathtub, purified water, and a window. In 1919, this was genuinely extraordinary.

1974
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1974

Ronald Reagan attended WHO Radio's 50th anniversary celebration at the hotel, proof that Fort Des Moines has always been Iowa's premier gathering place.

2021
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2021

After major renovations, the hotel reopened as part of the Curio Collection by Hilton, a century of history, restored for the next hundred years.