The digital broker Kota has signed up 150 companies to use its technology to deliver pension and health insurance benefits to \u201ctens of thousands\u201d of employees. Most work for fast-growing technology companies. It is partnering with 25 pension and health insurers \u2014 Mackey calls them carriers \u2014 across Europe, Canada, South Africa and India, and recently added its first insurer in Germany. Carriers include the South African-owned Vitality, the German multinational Allianz and the Spanish health insurer Sanitas.<\/p>\n
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Among Kota\u2019s \u201ccarriers\u201d is Germany\u2019s Allianz, whose global brand ambassador is Harry Kane<\/p>\n
MARCO STEINBRENNER\/SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we started it was taking a quarter [three months] to integrate a carrier,\u201d he says. \u201cOur goal now is to add a [new] carrier every two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
A number of global HR tech companies such as remote.com and HiBob are also embedding Kota technology into their platforms, accelerating the proliferation of the Irish company\u2019s technology and its revenues.<\/p>\n
Kota is not yet four years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been in a start-up where you are working a lot of late nights, continuously pushing the boulder up the hill,\u201d Mackey says. There are a lot of late nights at Kota, he adds, yet \u201cchasing the boulder down the hill is a lot more fun\u201d.<\/p>\n
What makes Kota attractive?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to see what\u2019s attracting venture capitalists. Making benefits easy for SMEs, increasing pension and health coverage, the company is addressing a huge market.<\/p>\n
When Mackey pulls the Kota app up on his smartphone, he can check his pension and increase his salary contribution. He examines his health insurance policy to see if he is covered for a forthcoming sinus operation. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s frictionless, \u00e0 la Revolut<\/a>. It integrates easily into the client company\u2019s payroll and HR system, \u00e0 la Stripe<\/a>.<\/p>\n Is Kota the Revolut or Stripe of benefits? \u201cIt depends on who we are talking to, HR or IT department,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Kota has been compared to Revolut<\/p>\n REVOLUT<\/p>\n The company is also leaning into a sizeable opportunity in its home market. The government\u2019s auto-enrolment or mandatory pension regime<\/a>, where every employee in the country must be offered a pension, is due to come into force from January. The state scheme MyFutureFund, which includes a top-up from the government, has its limitations so Kota is mounting a national roadshow to pitch its alternative, which it says is a quick, easy and cost-effective means of becoming auto-enrolment compliant.<\/p>\n It is piggy-backing on a state initiative to increase awareness of pensions, to lift its profile through 20 breakfast and lunch meetings. Clever.<\/p>\n Kota staffers pulled a late night last week stuffing envelopes with handwritten invitations with a QR code for registration. Mackey, a marketing graduate, was tickled by the idea of a digital-first tech company using \u201csnail mail\u201d as opposed to an email shot. Auto-enrolment is \u201canother tailwind\u201d, he says. <\/p>\n Route to success<\/p>\n Mackey, a Dubliner, started his first business career when studying for his marketing degree at the National College of Ireland (NCI). With a school friend from CBC Monkstown he set up Spacefox Studios, which made marketing videos and built websites for restaurants and coffee shops. His office was a \u201cwherever I popped myself down\u201d, which was usually a coffee shop.<\/p>\n He spent a lot of time watching queues, and customer frustration, building at peak periods. When he graduated from NCI in 2016, Mackey hooked up with a college friend, Alan Haverty, to create Bamboo, a mobile ordering app that made it easier for customers to pick up orders from restaurants close to their place of work at peak times. <\/p>\n Mackey, right, with his Bamboo co-founder, Alan Haverty, in 2018<\/p>\n BRYAN MEADE FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n Within three years the company partnered with 100 restaurants in Dublin, Cork and Galway. <\/p>\n \u2022 Ireland\u2019s 100 best restaurants for 2025<\/a><\/p>\n Funding the venture was \u201cpainful\u201d, Mackey says. It raised cash from a small number of private individuals and Enterprise Ireland, who invested \u20ac225,000. Joe Elias<\/a>, the US investor who invented vodka \u201cbaggies\u201d, or spirits in a pouch, and sold the Irish company Retail inMotion to Lufthansa, also lent the company \u20ac200,000.<\/p>\n In early 2019, an Australian company showed an interest in acquiring Bamboo as a launchpad into the European market. As talks went on, Bamboo continued to spend on its development.<\/p>\n When the Australian suitor walked out, Elias moved to inject more funds and take control. Mackey left in early 2020, just months before the pandemic would crater the business.<\/p>\n He needed a job \u2014 \u201cI had no savings\u201d \u2014 and applied for the role of Ireland manager for Bolt, the mobility app.<\/p>\n Mackey oversaw Bolt\u2019s launch in Ireland<\/p>\n ALAMY<\/p>\n At 26 he was Bolt\u2019s first Irish employee as it looked to challenge the incumbent MyTaxi, which has become FreeNow. <\/p>\n \u201cMy job was to open up and grow the market,\u201d he says. \u201cSo that was everything from getting the licences to operate, hiring the core team, finding an office that our drivers could go to, marketing [Bolt] to drivers to get supply, and marketing it with the passengers to get demand. And doing that in a really short period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n It was, he says, one of Bolt\u2019s most successful launches. One of his tasks was to put a benefits package in place for employees, which then numbered just five. Like most of his peers, Mackey knew nothing about pensions or health insurance.<\/p>\n Solution for small businesses<\/p>\n \u201cI quickly learnt that brokers don\u2019t like working with small businesses. We were a five-person team, wanting to set up a pension. That\u2019s not very lucrative for them.\u201d<\/p>\n Through his mother, Mackey eventually found a helpful broker. He was sent a PDF by email that he downloaded and printed out. \u201cI had to fill it out and then scan and send it back to the broker,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n He circulated the PDF to other members of the team. None filled it out. It was 2021 and the stock markets were roaring, and his peers were busy trading stocks on Revolut. <\/p>\n \u201cThey just thought, jeez, this is a pain in the ass.\u201d <\/p>\n When the scheme was set up, there was more paper. \u201cI just thought there has to be a better way to do this,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Mackey circled back and enlisted O\u2019Boyle and Baliga, who had worked on Bamboo, to start developing the app. Its first provider was Irish Life<\/a>. <\/p>\n Mackey wanted to take the paperwork out of pensions<\/p>\n GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n Kota secured approval to act as an insurance intermediate from the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK and the Central Bank of Ireland, which allowed the company to passport its service into Europe.<\/p>\n Mackey never saw himself as an insurance intermediary. \u201cWhen you are a broker, it means you can talk to insurance companies,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd when you talk to insurance companies, we can show them what the product looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n His experiences at Bolt taught him about keeping costs down and building at pace. Under the Kota model, insurers get access to distribution free of charge, while companies pay just \u20ac9 a month per employee, considerably lower than broker fees. Kota does not offer advice, but it does offer support. \u201cWe talk through options,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n There are no commissions, no contracts, and the HR department is not shuffling mounds of forms and paperwork.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/\/13684024-a2b0-4c07-8d70-924a3eeab33a.jpg\")
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