ZEGO

The idea was born inside a gig economy company. Sten Saar and Harry Franks were working at Deliveroo in early 2016.

They watched delivery riders struggle with massive upfront insurance premiums that barely matched their flexible hours. The system was completely broken for on-demand workers.

They started building a solution on evenings and weekends. By June they had quit their jobs to go all in.

They launched their first policy just two months later. That early hustle proved the demand was painfully real.

They never looked back.

Zego sells motor insurance by the second. Customers download an app and only pay for the time they actually spend driving.

Traditional insurers force upfront annual premiums that drain gig worker paychecks. Zego flips that model upside down.

They use telematics and AI to price risk in real time. Safe drivers get cheaper rates automatically.

Revenue comes straight from those flexible premiums. They hold their own UK underwriting license now.

That means they keep the underwriting profit instead of just acting as brokers.

Flex is their flagship pay-as-you-go product for gig workers. It hooks straight into delivery apps so coverage turns on the exact moment a shift starts.

Zego Sense uses hardware and app telematics to track driving behavior. Good drivers see their premiums drop automatically based on real data.

They also cover private hire vehicles and commercial fleets. Fleet managers get digital dashboards to handle claims and compliance in one place.

The platform removes paperwork and endless phone calls. Everything runs through a clean mobile interface.

The company scaled by betting on technology over traditional sales teams. They poured funding into a custom machine learning pricing engine.

Behavioral data replaced old actuarial lag. That shift let them expand from couriers to private hire taxis and commercial vans.

They even moved into personal car insurance in 2025. AI automation slashes their operational costs.

Customer queries are now mostly self-served. They focused on pricing discipline and reinsurance improvements.

That exact strategy pushed them to monthly profitability in December 2024.

The road to profitability was not a straight line. They swallowed a brutal £34 million net loss in 2023.

Underperforming segments and inaccurate risk pricing nearly derailed them. Traditional insurance cycles are brutal for tech startups.

They had to walk away from bad business lines fast. They rebuilt their pricing models and tightened their underwriting filters.

The hard work paid off quickly. Competition and regulatory scrutiny remain real threats.

They survive by staying cheaper than legacy carriers and faster at adapting to market shifts.

LocalGlobe backed them early when the concept was still raw on paper. That initial capital proved the pay-as-you-go model was actually viable.

The real breakthrough came when DST Global and General Catalyst stepped in. Yuri Milner’s DST Global led a massive $150 million round at unicorn status.

That money validated their tech stack to the entire market. It gave them the war chest to hire engineers and expand across Europe.

Investors bought into a future where auto insurance is flexible and data-driven. The funding turned a side project into a major player.