diff --git a/nxontology_ml/gpt_tagger/_cache.py b/nxontology_ml/gpt_tagger/_cache.py
index 85d70a5..f635e9f 100644
--- a/nxontology_ml/gpt_tagger/_cache.py
+++ b/nxontology_ml/gpt_tagger/_cache.py
@@ -100,6 +100,7 @@ def __init__(self, filename: str, **kwargs: ParamSpecKwargs):
 
     def __open_db(self) -> None:
         if not self._lsm:
+            Path(self._filename).parent.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)
             self._lsm = LSM(filename=self._filename, **self._lsm_kwargs)
 
     def __setitem__(self, __k: str, __v: bytes) -> None: