Cachet raises €5.5m to expand its marketplace for platform economy insurance

By Joy Dumasia

Cachet, the platform worker-focused insurance services marketplace that aims to foster a healthier platform economy has raised €5.5 million to expand its services to gig workers across Europe. The Tallinn-based InsurTech provides solutions for the growing platform economy workforce, accounting for 1 out of 5 economically active citizens in the EU by 2025. 

Traditional insurers struggle to deal with platform work’s unique needs, such as ride-hailing drivers that work across different platforms like Bolt and Uber. This makes worker protection cumbersome and costly. Cachet solves the issue of a platform worker’s employment-related data being spread across multiple platforms by aggregating the data across platforms. By building a better picture of worker employment patterns, Cachet enables insurers to create fair and flexible insurance policies and cut the costs for workers.  

Cachet already provides more affordable motor insurance for ride-hailing drivers and regular consumers, and delivery rider insurance covers personal injury and property damage, accidents and medical expenses. The company’s new insurance plans will include third-party liability and personal health and accident coverage for gig workers.  

Cachet will also pioneer a data-led fleet insurance model in the Baltics and the CEE region to improve risk management of commercial car and micro-mobility fleets used to provide app-taxi and delivery services, thereby reducing insurance costs for both workers and fleet managers. More than 12 insurance underwriters trust cachet with leading carriers like Allianz, PZU and VIG Group.  

Hedi Mardisoo, Co-Founder and CEO of Cachet, said: “Even though the platform economy has made companies like Deliveroo and Bolt some of Europe’s fastest-growing companies, it has been accompanied by a heated debate about workers’ rights. We have been involved in EU-level discussions to regulate platform work, and there’s an impulse to solve problems by reclassifying platform workers as employees. But using old thinking to solve new problems is likely to result in the baby getting thrown out with the bathwater.

Instead, we think that we can use technology to fix problems partly caused by technology. This way, we can keep the flexibility and freedom of the platform work ecosystem while putting the gig worker back in the driver’s seat.”

Leading the €5.5 million financing round was Paris-based Truffle Capital, making this their first investment in the region. The round also included Uniqa Ventures, an expert in the Central Europe region, and previous backer and lead investor Icebreaker.vc. Truffle Capital and Icebreaker.vc representatives will join Cachet’s supervisory board. 

Bernard-Louis Roques, Co-Founder and CEO of Truffle Capital, said: “Cachet has a strong regional footprint in the Baltic region and a clear long-term vision on how to tackle the platform economy problems from the freelancer’s perspective. Freelancers are the driving force of the new economy. Cachet has developed impressive data capabilities, with unique data assets, data platform and data science resources, which enable it to treat each and every freelancer individually, and at the same time, minimize the risk ratio for its insurance partners, making it a rising force in one of the most dynamic insurtech market.” 

Dr. Andreas Nemeth, CEO of UNIQA Ventures, said: “Cachet’s data-led pricing for gig economy workers does improve driving behaviour and has great potential to make commercial fleets safer and cheaper driving loss rations lower. Besides that, the data-driven success and the related massive growth potential of Cachet aligns perfectly with our investment focus on embedded insurance. I am excited to support Cachet’s founding team on their future success journey.” 

The funds will be used to grow the company’s team, improve its technology and data models, and expand within Europe. Cachet has an insurance distribution license that has been passported to most EU countries and currently operates in Estonia, Latvia, and Poland, while also serving customers in the UK, Lithuania, and Finland. In addition to Bolt and Uber, it also works with platforms like Upsteam, Citybee and Cleanify. In Estonia, the company’s first market, Cachet, holds 40% of the app-taxi segment’s market share.