Hibob, an HR technology innovator behind the people management platform bob, has secured USD70 million in a Series B funding round led by investors SEEK and Israel Growth Partners (IGP). Promoting the progress of Hibob’s mission to simplify people management, culture building, and employee engagement for remote and dispersed workforces, the investment will allow Hibob to drive wider global expansion while contributing to further Hibob product development.
Hibob has raised a total of USD124 million to date since its launch in late 2015. The latest funding round follows its Series A+ financing in 2019, backed by investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, Eight Roads Ventures, Arbor Ventures, Presidio Ventures, Entrée Capital, Cerca Partners, and Perpetual Investors – all of whom have additionally contributed to the current capital raised.
With triple-digit year-over-year growth in 2020, Hibob is quickly becoming a market leader, gaining strong traction with modern, mid-sized, multinational businesses. Since the company launched, Hibob has signed more than a thousand clients across the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, including fast-growing companies such as Monzo, Revolut, Cazoo, Happy Socks, Ironsource, Receipt Bank, Fiverr, Gong, and VaynerMedia. bob also closely integrates with third parties such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Mercer.
The HR technology market has been around for decades, however, managers, employees, and HR teams alike increasingly understand its importance when it comes to operating a successful organisation in today’s employee-centric business environment.
“As we were developing the concept behind our HR platform, we looked at the world of work and recognised that it was changing. I’ve spent my career managing people in different kinds of organisations and came to the realisation that the vast majority of HR tech tools I used were not designed for the way people work today – globally, remotely, and collaboratively,” says Ronni Zehavi, CEO and Co-founder of Hibob. “We founded Hibob to create a modern HR platform built for the changing demands of the modern workplace.”
“2020 was the year that pushed the practice of HR into the spotlight. HR leaders have been challenged to support their businesses and their people in new and different ways – to drive communication, engagement, and development despite the obvious hurdles,” says Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer with VaynerMedia. “At VaynerMedia, I knew that my ability to help our 1,000 employees grow through this tough year would only be possible with the right tools and structure in place. bob has enabled us to keep our people informed, engaged, and productive but perhaps most importantly, to nurture the unique culture and vibe that makes VaynerMedia such an exceptional place to work.”
The market has embraced Hibob, as HR leaders in fast-growing companies recognise that their legacy tools are not suitable to help them thrive in the new normal of remote and hybrid work. Today’s needs have gone beyond streamlining payroll and time tracking. Having a multi-generational workforce and global operations have made customisation and social engagement capabilities, as well as amazing UI and UX experience, must-have requirements. During the Covid-19 pandemic when HR leaders were forced to reinvent their operations model within weeks, the need has rapidly shifted to a system of engagement, empowering managers across companies to focus on people experience, culture transformation, social engagement, collaboration and transparency, and to thrive in the transition to remote work.
“Our investment philosophy includes investing in emerging HR SaaS leaders with platforms that deliver superior solutions, provide better value, and allow for an improved employee experience for scaling businesses,” says SEEK CEO and Co-founder, Andrew Bassat. “Hibob has been on our radar because of its strong value proposition and impressive business growth. Hibob has a great team led by an impressive and experienced founder, and has delivered an outstanding product to the market. We are pleased to join the board and be partnering with Hibob in their next phase of growth,” concluded Bassat.
“Building an HR platform is hard, and building it for fast growing customers is even harder,” says Adam Fisher, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “Hibob has done an exceptional job over the past year to serve ever larger business with an even more comprehensive platform. We are proud to have been involved since the seed stage and are excited for what lies ahead.”
