Startmate, Quokka Ventures invests $1.3m in lawyer’s ‘sexy’ check-out insurance app

Two lawyers who founded an app-based insurance platform over a glass of wine at a house party have received funding from Startmate and Quokka Ventures.

Cassie Bell and Steph Skevington have raised $1.3m for their new insurance platform Butter.

Two lawyers who founded a web-based insurance platform over a glass of wine at a house party in Sydney’s eastern suburbs have received $1.3m from Startmate and Quokka Ventures.

Butter, which launches next month in the consumer electronics space, will allow users to insure products like iPhones, earpods and laptops within sixty days of purchase via a web app.

The business is looking to target young people as it competes with the likes of home and content insurers, with a monthly fee of around $12 per month to insure a new iPhone.

Former lawyer Cassie Bell said she and her co-founder Steph Skevington, both 29, founded the idea over a kitchen table after Ms Bell has broken a pair of expensive earrings and Ms Skevington had totalled her laptop.

“We were basically drinking wine and complaining to each other about the expensive things we had broken,” she said.

“At the time, there wasn’t anything on the market geared toward younger people. There was nothing you could manage like a subscription. We thought it would be super cool to embed that insurance into a checkout,” she said.

The start-up has gotten the nod of approval from AP+ which will integrate Butter into its eQR Digital Marketplace being developed by eftpos.

Butter will offer monthly or yearly insurance products on products, which users can turn off via what Ms Bell describes as a “sexy app”.

“Eventually you can have your snowboard and your laptop policies all in the same platform, all of which are not locked in, cancel anytime,” she said.

Butter’s $1.3m raising included funding from Flying Fox VC and FB10X adVentures. Ms Skevington and Ms Bell, who completed Startmate’s Winter Accelerator program, worked for MinterEllison and Gilbert + Tobin respectively, quitting their roles in 2021.

The start-up has hired a marketing lead and would have a total of five staff including a new software engineer by the start of next year.

“Insurance is the un-sexy corner of financial services that has been ignored for too long. By partnering with retailers and using open banking integrations, Butter aims to make the process of taking out insurance seamless and simple,” Ms Bell said.