Long gone are the days when the only option to do your job was at the company’s brick-and-mortar office location. Remote work is no longer frowned upon for the most part, and for many tech startups having a distributed team is as natural as breathing.
Thor Heyerdahl, a famous Norwegian explorer and adventurer once said “Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people.”
And while many borders vanished with political changes and new technologies, enabling people to travel, live and work anywhere, the Oslo-based team of SafetyWing saw the borders that remained and rushed to bring the solution.
“Social safety nets like health insurance are national and only available in one’s home country. Millions are left to figure this out on their own with the majority going uninsured. To solve this problem, we are building the first global social safety net: a welfare state on the internet,” explains co-founder and CEO of SafetyWing, Sondre Rasch.
SafetyWing launched its first product, a subscription-based medical travel insurance coverage, in 2018. The cover targets workers located all over the globe and starts at only $37 per month, making it a flexible and affordable solution for many digital nomads, temporary expats, and long-term travellers alike. What differs SafetyWing from its direct competitor WorldNomads is its recurring monthly subscription, very much like the SaaS model many of the startup’s clients are used to at work and in life.
“Our typical customer is a digital nomad — an entrepreneur, freelancer or remote worker in a startup, early 30s, who has moved from the U.S. and spends three months at a time in their favourite low-cost countries with good infrastructure. Thailand, Indonesia, Colombia, Eastern Europe and Mexico are typical examples,” explains Rasch.
To bring the solution to more adventurous people working and living far and wide, the recent Y Combinator alumni has raised $3.5 million (circa €3.15 million) in seed funding. The round was led by byFounders, with participation from Credit Ease Fintech Fund and DG Incubation, and added to the capital previously raised from YCombinator and The Nordic Web Ventures.
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