HomeFundingSwiss insurtech startup grape picks up €1.7 million to reinvent employee insurance

Swiss insurtech startup grape picks up €1.7 million to reinvent employee insurance

Today, Swiss startup grape has announced a raise of €1.7 million to reimagine insurance for employees. The insurtech is making processes more efficient and streamlined for HR teams and giving employees improved services.  

Employee insurance is a standard for companies’ benefit packages across the world. It’s something that employees now anticipate having access to, yet, while it’s a massive market, it’s one ripe for innovation and disruption. Much of the current providers are lagging behind in terms of digitalisation and tech-enablement. Enter grape, the Swiss insurtech provider that aims to become a health partner and support all-over physical and mental wellbeing.

Gregory Inauen, Co-founder of grape: “grape is the first employee insurer built around a full-stack technology platform and a relentless focus on being more than just an insurance”

The funding

Grape has today announced a pre-Seed funding round of €1.7 million for its fresh approach to the insurance sector. 

The round was led by Swiss venture capital firm Wingman Ventures, with participation from the FinTech funds Tomahawk.VC and DD Venture Capital.

Grape: the neoinsurer for employee insurance

Founded in 2021 by Gregory Inauen and Fabian Mächler, grape provides digital employee insurance to enterprise customers. The insurance packages are bundled with a B2B SaaS product that saves the insured companies time managing their coverages and claims. The startup is also committed to improving services for employees themselves, and so directly reinvests into prevention services supporting the health of their customer’s employees through their benefits and paid therapy sessions – one of the first insurers to do so. 

The Zurich-based team has developed a product that is streamlining insurance processes for HRteams, taking away a headache that has been felt for a long time. The product operates with a variety of automation that reduce administrative burdens – such as claiming, reporting, and payroll adjustments.

So far, grape has built over 20 integrations into different HR tools which can be synced within seconds with their platform. All the employees that are covered with grape can access a wide range of benefits, coaching and therapy sessions to improve their physical and mental health.

It’s a product, therefore, that is making life easier for companies, offers an attractive benefits package, and takes holistic care of employees’ wellbeing. 

Lukas Weder, Founding Partner of Wingman Ventures stated: “The Insurtech world finds itself still in its early days. However, the insurance sector is one of the largest industries globally that now shows clear signs that new massive businesses can emerge. Grape’s approach to fully digitizing and automating the underwriting and claims handling process by integrating their technology into their customer’s processes is precisely what insurance customers expect from the next generation of insurance products.”

What’s next 

The insurance market is lucrative. And, as more companies add insurance packages as part of perks and benefits packages, it’s one that is continuing to grow. It’s also one that is in need of fresh innovation, bringing products and solutions into the digital age for a new generation of workers.

It’s reported that the group insurances for health, accident and life reached a market size of around €5 trillion in 2021. Meanwhile, a few massive massive insurance giants dominate most companies’ employee benefits packages, and they’re now grape’s main competitors.

The big giants are considerably lagging behind. Much of the work in this sector is still done manually, through paperwork and phone calls which leads to delays, mistakes and transparency. Traditional insurers do not only waste time and money managing their sick-leave policies, accident claims and pension plans, but through all these manual processes they also lack data to improve their underwriting and are mainly focused on fighting claims rather than preventing them in the first place.

Grape is using tech not only to streamline processes but to prevent problems and inefficiencies from arising in the first place. The aim is to go beyond merely insurance provision, but also be a health partner that supports mental and physical wellbeing from the very beginning, preventing leave, burnout and lost costs. 

The new funding will be used to continue expanding the product and grow the team further, to bring its vision to more enterprises and more markets. 

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Patricia Allen
Patricia Allen
is the Head of Content at EU-Startups. With a background in politics, Patricia has a real passion for how shared ideas across communities and cultures can bring new initiatives and innovations for the future. She spends her time bringing you the latest news and updates of startups across Europe, and curating our social media.
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