Hibob, the HR and employee benefits platform, has managed to raise $17.5 million in a Series A round led by US-based VC Battery Ventures. Also participating in the round were Eight Road Ventures, Arbor Ventures and Bessemer Ventures, who led its $7.5m Seed last year.
Launched just last year, London-based Hibob has built what it claims is a cloud-based HR and benefits platform in order to assist businesses with managing and engaging with their employees. The software includes all of the usual day-to-day HR admin tools, but with a lot more emphasis added on employee engagement, featuring a bottom-up approach to the formation and support of employee ‘clubs’ or interest groups.
It allows employees to declare and view each other’s interests and start new groups of their own, which are made visible and are then open to more formal support by the business owner or its HR department.
With its new inflow of funds, Hibob says it will the money will go towards scaling, building additional partnerships, addressing regulatory requirements, and also expanding across the globe as the year draws to a close. Commenting on the news, Ronni Zehavi, the co-founder and CEO, said:
Our vision is to transform the way businesses engage with their employees and empower HR to be at the forefront of this fundamental change. We see mobile and social media, the growing millennial workforce and cloud technologies as major forces for this long-needed innovation.
According to the company, its current employee numbers stand at 50 people in the UK and Israel, claiming to have ‘hundreds’ of companies actively using its platform in the UK.
It needs to be able to consolidate and simplify its administrative responsibilities so that it can be freed up to convert the energy and passion that young people arrive with into long-term engagement. We believe hibob’s highly experienced team has an intrinsic understanding of how to address these core issues that businesses must solve
