Spanish startup Cobee, which is revolutionising employee benefit management, has closed a Pre-Series A round valued at €2.1 million. The round was led by international investment firms Speedinvest, and Target Global. Other backers include Chris Bouwer (co-founder of Adyen) and existing investors Encomenda Smart Capital, Sabadell VC (Banco Sabadell), Lanai Partners and Abac Nest.
The fresh capital arrives following a highly successful year in which Cobee has managed to position itself as a key player in the field of Human Resources Management. Last year saw Cobee beat off competition from 750 companies worldwide to become overall winner of the BBVA Open Talent 2019, the world’s biggest fintech startup competition.
Founded in 2018 by Borja Aranguren and Daniel Olea, Cobee has proven its platform to be innovative, effective, and market-disrupting, leading to adoption by companies like Petronas, Opinno, Glovo, Avis Budget Group, Gympass, and Willis Towers Watson. With Cobee, organisations have a simple system to offer different benefits and products to their employees (meals, transport, nursery, medical insurance, etc.), without having to manage different providers and without major administrative tasks. On the other side, employees are empowered to control and manage their compensation and benefits in a highly flexible, comfortable manner through their smartphones.
With the new funding, and new renowned European fintech investors on board, Cobee can scale up its business model in Spain and expand into international markets. To support its mission of becoming a European category leader, the company plans to strengthen its team and enhance its platform by integrating new products and benefits.
Stefan Klestil, Partner at Speedinvest and early investor in WeFox and other successful fintech companies adds: “Digitisation and automation in the benefits management space is long overdue. The simplicity of Cobee’s solution and their platform-centric approach opens up a huge market opportunity to reinvent how benefits are disbursed and consumed across Europe (and beyond). We are excited to be backing Borja, Daniel and the team to build on the fantastic momentum they have received and take the company to the next level.”
Dr Ricardo Schäfer, Partner at Target Global’s Early Stage Fund II and investor in some of Europe‘s leading Fintech businesses, says: “We have been very impressed with Cobee’s employee centric benefits solution which offers a unique and user friendly value proposition and we are excited to partner with Cobee on their journey to become Europe’s leading employee benefits management provider.”
