In the current environment, Start-ups are having to do a couple of seemingly contradictory things at the same time. Firstly, they have to keep employees (the ones they want to keep, at least) happy. The other is attract new employees in a market where there remains fierce competition for talent. In their armoury to address this, they have ‘employee benefits’, whether it be mental health sessions or restaurant vouchers. However, many of these schemes leave something to be desired.
The “employee benefits & well-being” market is said to be worth €200 billion, and Europe makes up more than 40% of that market.
However, employee benefits engagement hovers around 20%, meaning companies waste a lot of money on unused packages.
Coverflex, a startup out of Portugal, thinks it has at least part of the answers.
Its solution claims to allow a company to design more bespoke employee compensation such as health insurance, meal allowance, fringe benefits and discounts by aggregating multiple providers. It says its platform then allows companies to reduce costs costs with tax-efficient benefits while giving employees more value and improving their financial literacy on compensation and benefits.
It’s now pulled in a €15 million Series A led by Paris-based CVC SCOR Ventures. Breega (pre-seed lead investor) re-invested as did MS&AD, Armilar, Stableton, BiG Start Ventures and Shilling. Angels participating include Firmin Zocchetto (CEO at PayFit), Job van der Voort (CEO at Remote), Humberto Ayres Pereira (CEO at Rows), Alessandro Petazzi (Co-founder of Musement), and Davide Dattoli (Founder of Talent Garden), among others.
In a statement, Miguel Amaro, Coverflex CEO said: “In the current macro environment, this Series A round validates our ambitious vision, product-market fit in Portugal, and a market opportunity in Europe, especially in Italy.” The company plans to target that country aggressively in the future.
Will Thorne, Head of SCOR Ventures who joins the company’s board, also commented: “Employers have an opportunity to reshape employee benefits management and improve employee satisfaction while closing the care and protection gap using a new generation of tools and services. Coverflex empowers companies and staff to deliver this ambition.”
Coverflex claims to have 3,600 clients, including Santander, Natixis, OysterHR, Bolt, Emma, Revolut and Smartex, with 70,000 active users, who, it says, use Coverflex more than 8 times on average per month.
Portugal’s Coverflex raises a €15M Series A to make employee benefits more flexible and engaging by Mike Butcher originally published on TechCrunch
