Cuvva, a pay-as-you-drive InsurTech company, has closed a £1.5m Seed round led by LocalGlobe.
The round, which brings the firm’s total amount raised to £2m, also drew support from Tekton Ventures, Techstars Ventures and Seedcamp.
Additionally, Nick Hungerford, the founder of online wealth manager Nutmeg, and Ian Hogarth, founder of SongKick, are among the startup’s backers.
Freddy Macnamara, co-founder of Cuvva, founded in 2014, explained his inspiration for the business: “It was ridiculous that I couldn’t borrow a car for an hour, because of the difficulty of getting short-term cover. I could order an Uber or a Deliveroo to my house, but I couldn’t buy insurance for a short period quickly. We realised that we could use the same mechanism to save infrequent drivers a huge amount of money.
“Technology has changed so many industries and given consumers cheaper, more convenient alternatives. Yet car insurance continues to be opaque and inflexible, costing some people a lot more than it should,” he added.
Expansion
Launching today, Cuvva’s monthly subscription of £10 to £30 will enable car owners to pay for their car insurance via a top-up premium, priced from £1.20 per hour, through an app when they wish to drive the car.
Cuvva says it will use the new funding to expand its team and market this new category of UK car insurance.
“This raise is going to put fuel in the tank to take us to the next level and we are really excited to be backed by some of the top Seed investors in London to do it,” Macnamara concluded.
Ophelia Brown, general partner at LocalGlobe, commented: “I would say that Cuvva sits squarely in our investment thesis that the most disruptive InsurTech startups are those that are fundamentally solving a technology problem. The thing that excites us about Cuvva is that they’re using technology to bring new insurance products to market. We’re very excited to see them launch today.”