London insurtech raises £6m to expand safety net for independent workers

A London insurtech has announced that it has raised £6m of funding in a round led by a Silicon Valley investor.

Collective Benefits, which focuses on solving the protection gap for independent workers, has raised the £6m in a round led by Silicon Valley venture fund NFX.

Alongside this investment, Pete Flint OBE, a general partner at NFX who was on the founding teams at companies like last minute.com and Trulia, will be joining Collective’s board.

Pete commented: “At NFX, we are fortunate to partner with a number of world-class companies in the on-demand economy.

The investment from NFX comes a year after Collective raised a £3.3 m seed round, taking the total raised since it was founded to just under £10 m. All of Collective’s existing investors followed on in the latest round, including Stride VC, Delin Ventures, Insurtech Gateway and executives from Uber, Deliveroo and Urban.

“We firmly believe that Collective has an opportunity to transform both the insurance and the on-demand economy with a blend of groundbreaking tech and razor-sharp insurance capabilities.”

While Collective has already innovated in building fully flexible insurance and benefits specifically for independent workers, from sick and injury pay to family and compassionate leave, this fundraise will allow the company to develop even more products to protect independent workers.

Anthony Beilin, CEO and co-founder at Collective Benefits, said: “We see NFX’s investment in Collective as a major vote of confidence in our ability to solve the protection gap problem for tens of millions of independent workers across the UK and Europe.”

Collective recently found that nearly a third of independent workers had no savings at all, while a further 58 per cent had £1.5l compared with national averages of £6,767.

From the funding, the scale-up plans to grow their member base to provide protections to ten times more independent workers in the next year.

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