Dublin-based Kota closes €12.8 million to build the internet’s employee benefits infrastructure

Irish startup Kota, an insurance benefits platform and API, today announced it has raised €12.8 million in Series A funding to make employee benefits globally accessible and frictionless for employees – bringing total funding to €20.2 million.

The round was led by Eurazeo, along with existing investors EQT Ventures, Northzone, Frontline Ventures and new investors in 9Yards and Plug and Play. Alongside their Series A, they are also announcing that they’ve obtained their Central Bank of Ireland Authorisation, reportedly making it one of the few technology platforms to be regulated.

Luke Mackey, Founder and CEO said: “Employee benefits, which can make up 25% of total compensation, are systematically undervalued and expensive. I experienced this as a Founder and a GM – managing benefits in email, between brokers and insurance companies, completely disconnected and alien from anything else in the business. It’s entirely out of date. Ultimately, no one on the team connected or engaged with them, no matter how much we invested. It’s not surprising. Insurance benefits are delivered in clunky portals or in PDFs, which is so unengaging compared to the financial experiences employees are used to.

“Kota integrates directly with insurance companies so we can control that experience and make it easy to roll out and run benefits, no matter who you are or where your team is. This means that employees can quickly understand, enrol, access coverage, retirement plans, or other benefits, and actually value them.”

First launched to customers in 2023, Kota aims to build the internet infrastructure for employee benefits. Empowering modern businesses to offer their employees insurance and retirement benefits more easily and affordably through their platform, app and embedded insurance offerings.

Kota looks to deliver a modern, user-first experience for employee benefits. It integrates directly with insurers and pension providers, giving employees real-time access and control, and HR teams a single platform to manage everything.

The funding will be used to expand the Kota team, increase the variety of insurance carrier partners in its products, and accelerate customer acquisition.

Elise Stern from Eurazeo said “Kota really stood out to us. With a tech-first approach, they’ve built a robust technical and financial infrastructure: deep integrations with insurers across dozens of countries, visibility across the benefits stack, and a seamless API that allows partners – from HRIS to payroll – to embed benefits natively. Having backed companies like Swile, PayFit, Peakon, and Qonto at Eurazeo, we’ve been long-term believers in the power of tech to reshape the way people work. Kota fits right into that vision, and we’re excited to welcome them to the portfolio.”

Kota integrates with insurance providers like Vitality in the UK, ONVZ in the Netherlands, Sanitas in Spain, Allianz Global Care internationally, and more. Kota powers benefits for Remote.com, and has become the benefits platform of choice for scale-ups across Europe such as Zoe Health, Poolside, Carwow, Tines, &Open and Protex AI.

Last year, they launched Kota Embed, their embedded insurance offering for HR platforms to make insurance benefits available to their customers without leaving their HRIS or Payroll tool, with customers like Remote, Helios and insurance companies like Irish Life Health as customers.

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