Cologne-based startup that digitally trains manual workers pockets €2.45M funding

Cologne-based digital training platform for manual workers how.fm has secured its first institutional funding of $2.8 million (nearly €2.45 million). The funding round was led by Kindred Capitaland Capnamic Ventures. Also, angel investors such as Rolf Schrömgens (founder of Trivago) and founders of Blinkist and Just Spices, and Philipp Moehring’s tiny.vc tool park on the funding round.

Eyes to strengthen its product

The German startup established in 2019 by serial entrepreneur Andreas Kwiatkowski and Farhoud Cheraghi operates with the mission to transform manual labour, powering and disseminating knowledge across enterprises with the help of its human process automation platform. This company will use the funding to expand its team in Germany and remotely and strengthen its product.

Andreas Kwiatkowski, co-founder and CEO of how.fm commented, “We have a unique opportunity to revolutionise work and productivity for those in manual roles, and for the companies that employ them. We believe in a future where any worker can get the best training, tailored to their individual needs, anywhere and anytime – delivered by a superhuman digital coach.”

He added, “We are super happy and excited to have found such amazing partners that believe in us as a team and our vision to democratise practical expertise.”

Ropes in new board of directors

Besides the funding round, Kindred partner Chrys Chrysanthou and Capnamic founding partner Jörg Binnenbrücker join the how.fm board of directors.

Chrys Chrysanthou, partner at Kindred said, “There is an overestimation on the state and speed of automation across industries. We are passionate about the team at how.fm and their vision of the long-term demand in human hard skills training and performance optimization, from doing the job in the next 10-20 years and maintaining the machines that do the job in the next 20-50 years. We want to support them to position their platform for the evolution of industries during this journey.”

Jörg Binnenbrücker, founding partner at Capnamic said, “Both the strong and complementary skill sets of the founders, which I could already witness at another startup I had invested in, as well as the product and business model of how.fm, convinced me from the absolute beginning. Digitally training and reskilling blue-collar workers is a huge market and especially important in challenging times such as during a global health crisis. The technology of how.fm can certainly help companies to survive and thrive, which is now more important than ever.”

What does how.fm do?

The how.fm digital coach for worker onboarding, training, and performance support covers everything from health and safety to actual work procedures including packing processes. With this product, customers can easily create step-by-step videos for their workers so that they can learn the job. It enables quick assembly and instant changes.

The tool is designed for both companies and workers. It lets customers such as large logistics, manufacturing and retail companies do a range of tasks such as standardise return procedures quickly. how.fm platform can train any worker interactively, virtually and quickly to remove goods from the package, check the order, find out the quality and process them, fold and pack them for resale via a sequence.

The content on the how.fm platform is automatically translated into the workers’ native language. Also, they can interact with it hands-free, thanks to the voice interface as it will help elderly, migrant and illiterate workers. This comes at a time when the smart assistant adoption is taking place at a faster rate than any other technology.

Serves a wide clientele

The Cologne-based startup helps its customers including big names such as Ingram Micro, Tommy Hilfiger and Duisport with onboarding, training and performance support. Also, it helps their workers learn and grow.

The supply chain services provider Ingram Micro handles fulfilment and returns for Asos and Zalando in Europe under its Docdata brand. It uses the how.fm platform in Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, and other languages to train warehouse staff. And, fashion retailer Tommy Hilfiger uses how.fm to support its German retail staff in fulfilment tasks during peak seasons. Duisport, the world’s largest inland port, deploys the platform to help with training and performance support for warehousing and e-commerce logistics tasks in its contract logistics division.

That’s not all as other customers of how.fm include a German car manufacturer, a cosmetics company, a restaurant chain, a physical rehabilitation clinic chain and a European Space Agency.

Main image picture credits: how.fm