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From mobile training and collaboration tools to salary payments and healthcare staffing platforms, here are some work-focused tech start-ups to look out for.
There is no doubt that the pandemic has revolutionised the way people work. As organisations across the world continue their digital transformation, hybrid and remote work are fast replacing traditional office set-ups and becoming the norm.
Making this shift easier is a host of technologies that seek to address the many challenges associated with teams not being in physical proximity as much any more, from training and staffing to collaboration and other human resources concerns.
And while an economic downturn may be causing investment to slow in some sectors, the HR tech market – estimated to be worth around $12bn last year – remains bullish as the ‘great resignation’ shows signs of slowing down.
Here is a list of budding businesses across Europe that are playing a role in making the lives of employers and employees easier as we take steps towards the future of work.
Bemlo
This Stockholm-based healthcare staffing marketplace is on a mission to help hospitals hire nurses and doctors on short-term contracts quickly and efficiently. By allowing professionals to review hiring agencies on its platform, Bemlo aims to help fill labour market gaps in demand and supply, and improve working conditions for healthcare workers.
Founded in 2019, Bemlo raised $3.3m in a seed round backed by Y Combinator earlier this month. With existing operations in Sweden, Norway and the UK, the start-up is now hoping to expand into other European markets.
Doinstruct
Doinstruct is a German mobile learning start-up that is helping employers train their workers across the world through the convenience of a smartphone. With its web app, Doinstruct offers video-based, low-threshold and multilingual training courses for employees to gain certification in their areas of required expertise. It does not require downloads, a company email address or desktop access, and is thus more accessible.
Founded in Osnabrück in 2021 by Daniel Marinkovic, Thorsten Gross and Charlotte Rothert, Doinstruct raised an undisclosed seven-figure funding amount earlier this month led by High-Tech Gründerfonds and Born2Grow.
Happeo
The founders of intranet software company Happeo believe employees are spending too much time trying to navigate increasingly serpentine channels of communication while working from home. Founded originally as Universe in 2016, Happeo is an all-in-one-place platform that aims to “connect growing teams with the knowledge, news and tools they need to do their best work”.
The start-up is based in Helsinki and raised $26m in Series B funding last month, led by Endeit Capital, Smartfin and Evli Growth Partners.
HiPeople
HiPeople is a Berlin-based HR tech company that was founded in 2019 to help recruiters hire remotely. Its hiring intelligence platform automates candidate reference checks from request to collection and analysis, and provides tools for candidate assessments.
Some of HiPeople’s customers include digital insurance company WeFox, data processing company Celonis and HR software company Personio, which is one of the most valuable start-ups in Europe. HiPeople raised $3m in a seed funding round in January 2021 led Atomico co-founder Mattias Ljungman’s venture firm, Moonfire.
Kadmos
The International Labour Organization estimates that there are around 169m international migrant workers globally. German start-up Kadmos is on a mission to make salary payments for migrant workers fast and simple for companies. It has developed an end-to-end platform that enables employers to reduce to the cost and difficulty of making cross-border salary payments.
Founded in 2021 by MIT graduates Justus Schmueser and Sasha Makarovych, Kadmos raised €29m in a Series A funding round last month, led by Blossom Capital.
Roleshare
Roleshare, as the name suggests, is a role-sharing marketplace that matches two professionals who want to share one full-time job by splitting working hours. Accelerated by the trend of flexibility that came along with the pandemic, Roleshare is betting on this as the future of work as more and more companies seek to retain top talent. Some of its clients include big names such as JP Morgan, BP and Alphabet’s X Moonshot Factory.
Founded by UK-based husband-wife duo Sophie and David Smallwood, the start-up announced earlier this week that it raised $1.2m in seed funding led by Plug and Play VC and backed by several institutional and individual investors.
RPA Supervisor
Based in Bergen, Norway, RPA Supervisor describes itself as an intelligent automation management platform for the digital workforce. The start-up helps businesses accelerate digital transformation by streamlining the operation of all major robotic process automation (RPA) tasks. This means that businesses can spend less time on mundane and repetitive tasks such as scheduling, managing and fixing – and more time on delivering value to customers.
RPA Supervisor raised $20m in a Series A funding round led by Dawn Capital last month. Its growing list of customers include Sysco Foods, Virgin Media O2, Medscheme and Newell Brands.
Seatti
Seatti, another German start-up, has created a flexible workspace software platform to help those working in hybrid or remote roles. It lets employees book shared desks, rooms and parking spaces in offices as well as plan their remote working locations, while giving employers data to optimise their hybrid set-ups.
The platform went live in May last year and has deep integrations with the Microsoft ecosystem. Clients include Osram, Sixt, Sartorius, Mazars and FlixBus. Seatti raised €3m in a seed funding round led by Acton Capital and Partech last month.
Workvivo
This Cork-based workplace communications software company is one of Ireland’s fast-growing start-ups. Founded in 2017 by John Goulding and Joe Lennon, the Workvivo platform is designed based on the way that people interact outside of the workplace. Employees can share, post, comment, podcast or livestream on the communications hub. Boosted by the pandemic, the start-up has experienced more than 150pc year-on-year growth for the past three years.
Workvivo raised €20.8m in a Series B funding round led by Tiger Global in June. Since 2020, the company’s team has grown sixfold and it has opened new offices over the past year in Boston, London and Dublin.
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