CharlieHR, the London-based HR startup, has closed a £1 million seed investment round from Connect Ventures and early-stage fund Seedcamp, alongside angel investors Nick Hungerford (Founder, Nutmeg), James Wise (Partner, Balderton Capital), Alistair Mitchell (Founder, Huddle) and Ian Hogarth (Founder, Songkick), among others. The startup launched its free HR platform for small businesses in September 2015.
CharlieHR is able to automate many administrative headaches that fast growing business faces – from onboarding new employees and managing their data securely to tracking time off and sick days. The software itself is free. The startup company monetise through an intelligent marketplace that enables companies to purchase a range of products and services – from software and insurance to benefits and pensions. The system automatically configures to consider the size and demographics of each business.
Rob O’Donovan, Co-Founder and CEO: “We created CharlieHR to solve our own constant frustration with boring everyday admin that got in the way of doing what we loved. Too many spreadsheets and too many emails. We felt that much of it could and should be automated. Building a company is hard, but running one shouldn’t be. We believe small companies of today will change the world. We’re proud to build tools that will empower them to do that. We offer them to start with the most important asset – people.”
Over 650 companies across Europe have already benefited from the platform – Lost My Name, SECRETSALES.com, Pact Coffee, Entrepreneur First (etc.). The company will use investment to build further functionality into the platform, develop its marketplace offering and continue expansion into Europe.
It’s great to see a service like this that starts out free and earns its money through offering many features that companies will surely be looking for once they get their company moving and have money coming in from their operations. It places value in the advanced features being offered, and the ability for the software to analyze demographics and business size to scale itself appropriately is important for growth and continued use. Thanks for sharing.