After raising €103.6M in January this year, Munich-based HR tech startup Personio, today, has announced that it is all set to expand its business in the Netherlands. This fall, the company will open an office in Amsterdam.
After its funding in January, the company became a unicorn after being valued at €1.4B.
Making HR processes transparent and efficient
Personio was founded in Germany in 2015 by Arseniy Vershinin, Hanno Renner, Ignaz Forstmeier, and Roman Schumacher. The company offers cloud-based HR management and recruiting solutions and software for startups and SMEs.
The platform helps 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 other features.
According to the company, its platform can be integrated with business applications such as Slack, LinkedIn, Declaree, and Culture Amp.
Personio has over 700 employees and the goal is to reach a number of 1,000 employees by the end of 2021. For the office in Amsterdam, the aim is to gradually expand the team and make it an important location.
Meet Lars Boom
Lars Boom is the Country Manager, Benelux & France, of Personio. According to the company, the Benelux office will be headed by Boom, who has already started assembling the Dutch team from Munich and will seek to expand it even further. Boom was previously responsible, among others, for a program aimed at supporting European SME entrepreneurs at LinkedIn. At first, the main sales activities for Benelux will be carried out from the office in Amsterdam. Additional positions may be added in the future.
In an exclusive interview with Silicon Canals, Boom talks about his background and why he joined Personio. He says, “Before I joined Personio a bit over a year ago, I worked for Linkedin and De Staffing Groep. And before I came to Munich, where I’m located at the moment, I lived in Dublin where I enjoyed a very international atmosphere.”
He further adds, “What really intrigued me about Personio was to work for a fast-growing tech company that’s focusing on the needs of European SMEs and where I am able to build up a team from scratch to serve thousands of Dutch companies. Despite enjoying living and working in an international environment, I’m Dutch myself after all, and the Netherlands is my home. That’s why I’m really excited about moving back to Amsterdam and building up our Benelux office.”
The company has more than 3,500 SME customers throughout Europe, including more than 60 in the Benelux. 75 per cent of these customers are located in the Netherlands.
Speaking on the expansion to the Netherlands, Lars mentions in the press release, “There is a strong need among SMEs for a complete and easy-to-use HR solution. Our rapid growth in Benelux in the past year demonstrates this. In addition, this is a real SME region, which offers us great opportunities. From our office in Amsterdam, we can support even more local SME companies.”
Why Amsterdam?
According to Hanno Renner, co-founder and CEO of Personio, “Amsterdam is the perfect location for our Benelux office. It is the heart of business in the region and has a very active startup community. Here, we are closer to our Benelux customers while making it easier to attract local talent.”
“The opening of the Amsterdam office is another step in our growth strategy for Benelux and Europe. This is definitely going to help us fulfil our ambition to become the leading HR platform for European SMEs,” he further adds.
Boom is also of the opinion that Amsterdam is a great location, right in the economic heart of the region. “Amsterdam is known for its very active startup community, the excellent digital infrastructure and SME-friendly economic climate. It is our ambition to be Europe’s leading HR platform for SMEs. The Benelux and the Netherlands are a major part of that growth strategy.”
Expectations from this expansion in Amsterdam
The Personio team at the Amsterdam office will be responsible for growing its business in the Benelux, enabling HR teams in SMEs. Currently a team of three, the company plans on hiring more this year, especially in the sales roles and other additional roles in the future.
Speaking about the ambitions for Personio in the Netherlands, Boom tells SC, “Our ultimate goal is to help European SMEs unlock their productive potential by digitising and automating people operations. We firmly believe that businesses cannot succeed long-term without an outstanding people function, because businesses don’t create value, people do. In all this, we are fully committed to Europe: The Netherlands especially is a country where SMEs are vitally important. By unlocking their productive potential, we support a healthy Dutch and European economy.”
The company currently has offices in several other European countries including, Munich, Madrid, Dublin, London, and now Amsterdam (soon to be added). Some of its customers in the Benelux and the Netherlands include SkyTeam, GoSpooky, Channable, Skinvision en Lepaya.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The headline of this article has been changed.
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