HR tech startup Personio launches in the UK and Ireland with $75M Series C investment led by Accel

You may not have heard of Personio, but it’s a major human resources, recruiting and payroll platform making waves across Europe, digitising the HR departments of almost 2,000 SME customers in more than 40 countries. Personio is a cloud-based HR management and recruiting solutions and software for startups, and small and medium sized businesses.

Today, Personio launches in the UK and Ireland following a significant $75 million funding round. This brings Personio’s total investment amount to $130 million, since its launch in 2015. The funding round was led by Accel, the global venture capital firm founded in Silicon Valley, which has backed the likes of Slack and Facebook, as well as Spotify through to their IPO and UiPath through its rapid growth. Additional capital comes from Lightspeed Venture Partners, and others.

Founded in 2015 by Hanno Renner, Arseniy Vershinin, Ignaz Forstmeier, and Roman Schumacher, the Munich, Germany-based Personio enables its customers to store and manage all employee data and HR processes in one place, including vacation and sick days, approvals, salary, attendance, employee documents, performance, reporting, and employee on-boarding. Its recruiting function comprises applicant tracking, interview scheduling, candidate reviews, and many other features.  More than 12,000 customers in over 40 countries are already successfully using Personio.

Commenting on the funding, Hanno Renner, Co-founder and CEO of Personio, said: “Adding Accel and Lightspeed Venture Partners, both highly experienced investors, to our list of supporters shows how much people believe in our product. This preemptive funding comes earlier than we had anticipated. Such strong interest and support from the market demonstrates not only the value of Personio’s offer, but also the huge potential the business has for further development and growth in the future.

Renner added: “The new funds will help support our expansion into the UK and Ireland. Businesses in these markets can take advantage of our best-in-class German engineering to automate HR admin processes and free up time for more valuable tasks. Whether it’s fintech or food delivery, SMEs across the UK will now have our full support when it comes to choosing and transitioning to Personio.”

Harry Nelis, Partner at Accel, and the newest member of the Personio board, also commented:
“While software entrepreneurs have traditionally overlooked developing solutions for SMEs, Personio has recognised this large and growing market of customers hungry for better solutions for their businesses. With millions of SMEs looking for improved human resource and recruitment management, Personio will lead the way. As Personio’s highly-ambitious team moves into their next stage of growth, we are excited to be part of the journey.”
Lars Dalgaard, Founder of SAP SuccessFactors, commented:

“Having had the chance to meet and work with Hanno and his team over the past few months, it’s remarkable to see how they’ve built a fast growing company and a great product, both with relentless focus on the customer. The idea of Personio is as simple as it is promising because it solves a significant and complex problem for HR managers and companies alike. Having built HR software services for enterprises myself, I know the value and impact this can have on businesses. Working with Personio as they now bring that value to small and mid-sized companies across Europe is an exciting prospect, and I’m happy to be part of the team and support them on their mission.”