In recent times, the world has witnessed a historic shift in working due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While some companies offered the ability to work from home as a perk, it is now becoming the norm for most businesses with more companies adopting work-from-home policies. Employers are increasingly adopting the tools and resources to not only enhance communication & collaboration but also ensure workforce satisfaction and fulfilment.
Supporting the remote work economy, the world’s first insurance startup dedicated to remote workers and digital nomads, SafetyWing, has just closed a $35M series B funding round. The funding follows an $8M Series A round last year as well as a 10x revenue growth.
This funding round was led by leading European growth investor Kinnevik, with participation from existing investors Creandum and byFounders. The round also featured insurance investor Mundi Ventures.
Remote work is growing faster than ever
A recent survey has revealed that remote working is growing and evolving rapidly. 81% of salaried employees have revealed that they enjoy working remotely, with 65% claiming to be more productive while working remotely. Furthermore, 75% of workers said they would be more likely to apply to a job that offers a remote working option.
Advances in communication technology and internet access have led to teleworking becoming an accepted practice in many offices, in both the U.S. and worldwide. The modern workforce is increasingly mobile, collaborative & dynamic, comprising multiple generations. This growth has led to an explosion in startups and businesses offering supporting infrastructure to remote teams and organisations pushing this model, to ensure a win-win scenario for everyone.
Inspired by Nordic social security
San Fransisco-based SafetyWing was founded in 2018 by COO Hans Nyvold Kjellby, CTO Sarah Beyahte Sandnes and CEO Sondre Rasch. The Norwegian founders set out on a mission to build a global social safety net, inspired by the one they’re familiar with in Norway, but available for remote workers anywhere globally.
Sondre Rasch, SafetyWing’s co-founder and CEO explained, “SafetyWing was launched because we saw first-hand that while remote teams are global, the infrastructure that supports them, like the social safety net, is not. We built it because we as digital nomads and with a remote team needed it ourselves, and we realized we were not alone. We were our first customers, and it’s been quite a journey to where we are today.”
SatfetyWing’s remote health insurance is a fully-fledged health insurance product for remote teams and entrepreneurs. It is offering global companies a flexible solution that allows employees to access comprehensive health insurance that works in any country they’re stationed in. The need for the product has been obvious with the company experiencing an almost 10x growth since last year.
This funding will enable the business to scale its Remote Health offering, as companies increasingly adopt remote work across the globe. SafetyWing hopes to deploy Remote Health to more companies while improving the product.The funding will also fuel the expansion of the Nomad Insurance product. In addition to this, the team is building out its Remote Doctor and Remote Retirement product.
“As companies grow their remote teams, they are met with the complexities of attracting and retaining talent globally, combined with considerably tightened labour markets. Companies are battling fiercely to attract the best candidates which is quickly showing employers the importance of offering remote workers more than just a competitive salary. SafetyWing’s unique global travel and health insurance plan helps firms set themselves apart by offering better benefits to remote workforces. We have been very impressed with their strong team and company culture, the way they live and breathe their offer (being a largely remote workforce themselves), and how they have been able to achieve such strong growth in a short time. We’re very excited to partner with SafetyWing to help the team scale global products on their continued growth journey.” commented Tatiana Shalalvand, the Investment Director at Kinnevik.
