Mintago

Mintago operates an employee benefits and financial wellbeing platform for UK employers, combining salary sacrifice schemes, pensions tools, health and lifestyle benefits, and financial education in a single portal. The salary sacrifice offering covers categories including pensions, electric vehicles and EV charging, cycling, technology, home and garden, appliances, childcare, mobile and holiday travel, and is positioned as reducing both employer and employee National Insurance liabilities, with the company citing up to 15% back on employer NI and up to 47% employee savings.

On the pensions side, the platform includes a pension dashboard for employees to track pots and adjust contributions, a "Pension Hunter" service in which Mintago's team traces lost pension pots from previous employers, a pension provider review service for employers, and access to impartial financial advice from a panel of advisers on which the company states it earns no commission. Wider benefits include retail discounts, family support and elderlycare funding guidance, an Employee Assistance Programme with 24/7 access to accredited counsellors, a virtual GP service with video consultations, a health rewards and discounts marketplace, and health and fitness discounts.

Additional employee-facing features include cost-of-living and energy guidance, a retirement planner with forecast graphs, a "Money Helper" question-and-answer tool, budgeting tools, an AI helper, and "financial journeys" covering life stages such as applying for a mortgage, supported by a learning library the company describes as containing over 1,000 pieces of content. For employers, the platform provides reporting, communications and survey tools plus guidance on reporting benefits to HMRC.

Founding story

Chieu Cao launched Mintago after identifying a gap for a platform focused wholly on financial wellbeing, particularly better management of pensions as one of individuals' largest assets. Cao previously co-founded Perkbox, co-founded Huddlebuy, and held marketing and product roles at Microsoft, Yahoo! and Amazon. Guinness Ventures states the company was founded in 2019 by Chieu Cao and Daniel Conti, while a Startups.co.uk profile gives a founding year of 2017; a founder profile dates Cao's leadership of Mintago from July 2019.

Business model

B2B: employers purchase the platform for their workforces, with Mintago administering benefits and salary sacrifice arrangements automatically from payroll and acting as a single vendor in place of fragmented benefits suppliers. Employees receive access to advisers, tools and discounts at no cost to them; Mintago states its pension advice is impartial and commission-free.

Traction

The company reports more than 500 UK business customers. Case studies cite adoption rates of 100% (NICE), 90% (Ride Tandem) and 88% (Anmut) and lost pensions found of £10,849, £67,361 and £775,827 respectively. As of the 2023 Startups 100 profile, Mintago claimed to have saved over £1m for businesses and located over £10m of missing pensions for employees.

Latest developments

Following its £6 million Series A led by Guinness Ventures, with SeedX and Social Impact Enterprises participating, Mintago said it would expand its all-in-one solution, accelerate product development and invest in insights and automation for clients.