Why startup vet Robbie Cape chose insurance — a tough VC, a trillion-dollar market and the money

Robbie Cape has been hinting for months that something was coming. Now he’s ready to say what it is.

The Seattle tech entrepreneur revealed on Tuesday that he’s building a new startup to reimagine the insurance industry, launching The Instrument with backing from Pioneer Square Labs.

In a post on LinkedIn, Cape said the decision to enter insurance came after a nine-month job search that nearly ended with him taking a role at a healthcare company in Utah.

Cape said he chose insurance for three reasons: PSL partner Greg Gottesman, who he described as the kind of tough, authentic venture investor he wanted beside him; the industry itself, which reminded him of healthcare in its complexity and potential for disruption; and money.

“For the first time in my career, I chose an opportunity without a mission to repair the world at its core,” Cape wrote. “Insurance is a trillion dollar industry built on exceptional business models. Generational wealth gets created here in ways that most industries simply don’t match. I found that compelling. More compelling than I’m comfortable admitting.”

Cape previously co-founded and ran telehealth startup 98point6 as CEO for six years, and before that spent 11 years at Microsoft and co-founded Cozi, a family scheduling app. Most recently he helped launch sustainable chicken restaurant Mt. Joy in Seattle, which he left in May 2025.

The idea for The Instrument had been in development at PSL for several months before Cape signed on, brought to him by PSL partners Gottesman and David Zager.

The startup incorporated in March, and Cape, the CEO, is joined so far by CTO T Van Doren and chief product officer Matt Witcher as co-founders. Cape said Van Doren was employee No. 1 and Witcher was employee No. 8 at 98point6.

The company’s website offers few details beyond the tagline “insurance reimagined,” though the domain — theinstrument.ai — signals an AI-driven approach.

“Several months in, I’m more excited than the day we shook hands,” Cape wrote of his partnership with PSL.