French startup Jump wants to disrupt the industry of umbrella companies, which provide an alternative to traditional freelancing jobs. They can hire workers on permanent contracts so that they get the stability and benefits that come with a full-time contract. But workers remain independent — they can work with multiple clients and negotiate their contracts directly.
What makes Jump different from legacy companies operating in the space is that it’s much cheaper and much more automated. Jump lets you create an account and send your first invoice automatically — you don’t have to talk to anyone at Jump to get started.
Once you sign up, you can start asking your clients to pay Jump instead of paying you directly. At any time, you can see your outstanding invoices and how much money you have on your Jump account.
Jump customers can then create payslips and receive a salary. And because it’s a regular French permanent contract, you are registered with the national healthcare system and you start saving for your retirement. If things are not going well with your client, you can request to terminate the contract and become eligible for unemployment benefits.
The company raised a $4.5 million (€4 million) seed round led by Index Ventures. Kima Ventures and 16 angel investors also participated in the round, such as Nicolas Brusson, Hanno Renner, Laurent Ritter and Thibaud Elziere.
Traditional umbrella companies take a cut of your annual turnover. Pricing varies, but it can be 5%, 7% or even sometimes 10%. For instance, Jump co-founder and CEO Nicolas Fayon used to work for ITG, which charges 6% to 8% on your revenue. You can also pay ITG an additional 2% to manage expenses and therefore optimize your pay.
Jump currently charges a flat subscription fee of €79 per month (that’s $89). Customers can then access third-party services, such as professional and personal life insurance with Axa, health insurance with Alan, several freelance marketplaces (Malt, Talent.io and LeGratin) and other miscellaneous services (Simbel, Secret or HelloPrêt).
So far, Jump has been working with hundreds of freelancers. They have invoiced €3 million to date. Many freelancers could benefit from such a product, such as developers, real estate agents or drivers. And I believe there’s a big market opportunity for umbrella companies; they could be particularly useful for people working remotely for foreign companies that don’t want to open a subsidiary in France.
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