prabhuA London-based insurance tech startup has raised £3.3million in seed funding to develop a platform that provides gig economy workers with access to employment benefits.
Collective Benefits has been backed by Zoopla investor Stride.VC alongside existing investors Delin Ventures, Insurtech Gateway and a number of angel investors with experiemce of building gig platforms including Uber, Deliveroo and Urban.
The startup’s platform provides a financial safety net for self-employed workers, giving them access to benefits including sick pay, family leave and mental health support.
Currently, the startup says, 96% of UK freelance workers do not have any form of income protection.
Chief executive Anthony Beilin said: “There are 6m self-employed workers in the UK, which includes both higher-paid freelancers and gig economy platform workers. Yet, neither group typically has a safety net — no holiday pay, no family leave, no mental health support, not even paid sick days.
“We are building Collective Benefits so that the gig economy workers are covered by the same protections typically reserved for full-time employees.”
Collective Benefits has been a part of Facebook’s startup accelerator programme LDN_Lab.
“We’re seeing services platforms gain unstoppable momentum in every segment of our lives, from rides to food delivery to freelancing,” said Fred Destin, partner at Stride.VC.
“We need a new playbook. Collective Benefits addresses one of the core challenges in this brave new world of work, using technology to design and deliver a new type of safety net to all the participants in this fast-growing part of our economy.”
Founded in 2019, Collective Benefits was founded by Anthony Beilin, former Global Head of Innovation at Aviva, and Benjamin Hay, previously Director of Strategy & Operations at Virgin Unite.
