Estonian startup Cachet raises $1.3 million in seed funding

Tallinn-based Cachet, a financial services marketplace for the gig workers, has raised $1.3 million in a seed round. The round was led by Icebreaker.vc with the participation from previous investors as Techstars, Barclays, and Lemonade Stand including some angel investors such as Chris Adelsbach (UK-based entrepreneur and investor), Kartik Varma (the Managing Director of the London Barclays Accelerator), Martin Cass (CEO at MDC Media Partners and Assembly), and Richard Howard. Cachet has raised a total of $1.7 million in funding over three rounds, Crunchbase reports.

Founded in 2018 by the CEO Hedi Mardisoo and Kalle Palling, Cachet is individual insurance, according to usage and management habits, which is also intended to promote and boost the sharing economy. The company`s goal is to provide an uncommon view of the actual working hours of workers and to enable insurance companies to sell customized insurance coverage at a better price.

The company wants to use the proceeds on expanding to new countries like the Nordics, Poland, and the UK. Also, Cachet is planning to add services catering to the sharing economy, such as urban mobility or vacation rental marketplaces. To date, Cachet is already used by drivers from Bolt, Yandex, and Uber, and around 25 percent of all drivers in Estonia and Latvia are using the platform to find affordable insurance. 

Hedi Mardisoo, co-founder and CEO of Cachet, said:

 “The number of people working part-time or full-time for online platforms like Uber, Airbnb, or Fiverr has more than doubled in the last three years. The COVID-related economic slowdown is bound to accelerate it further. However, platform workers are currently underserved by financial services providers. This means that platform workers often have the choice of either buying expensive coverage or simply not working. However, there are currently millions of people in Europe that depend on flexible income and would be able to take advantage of better-priced and personalized financial services. We’re excited to replicate the success of our first product in further areas of the sharing economy where insurance products are currently expensive or non-existent like urban mobility and vacation rental marketplaces.”