The round was led by King River Capital with participation from Mastercard and Allstate along with existing investors Venrock, NEA, Fidelity’s F-Prime Capital, and Moderne Ventures. The funding included new angel investors Bruce Perkins (former President of Healthcare Services at Humana), Chet Burrell (former CEO of CareFirst), Aneesh Chopra (the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States), Jonathan Bush (founder of AthenaHealth), and Kevin Nazemi (cofounder of Oscar Health Insurance).
Founded in 2013, Stride partners with more than 120 companies including Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Amazon, Grubhub, Etsy, Patreon, Keller Williams, Willis Towers Watson, Aon and Gopuff to bring portable benefits to their communities of independent contractors. In the first eight months of 2021, Stride’s membership climbed to 2.7M individuals while health enrollments increased 3.5X over 2020.
Beyond medical plans, Stride also offers life insurance in partnership with Ladder.
“Getting your own benefits can be stressful, confusing and expensive for independent workers. An estimated 90 million Americans will work independently by 2028, and they all deserve to feel financially secure. That’s why we’ve built a modern, flexible benefits system for independent workers – because benefits shouldn’t be reserved for full-time traditional employees.” – Noah Lang, co-founder and CEO of Stride.
“All Americans benefit when more of us have access to affordable, portable benefits. We need a system that mirrors the flexible, individualized nature of work today and that helps the 59 million independent workers in the U.S. navigate the complex world of benefits and financial security. The speed at which Stride’s business is scaling speaks to the urgency of this need and the value that its platform delivers to this essential, yet underserved, segment of the U.S. economy.” – Megan Guy, general partner and co-founder of King River Capital.
