Picus Capital is an early-stage technology investment firm with a long-term investment philosophy. We work together with daring technology companies to build successful, global companies challenging the status quo and shaping tomorrow. We want to become the closest partner of our portfolio companies by working together on key strategic decisions and operative challenges. As a privately financed venture capital investor with long-term and flexible capital we are looking for exceptional founders who are committed to building category leaders throughout the next 5-10+ years. We invest in early-stage technology ventures with a focus on financial services, HR, energy & climate, healthcare, logistics & mobility, real estate & construction, crypto & web3, deeptech and e-commerce. Picus makes initial investments in pre-seed, seed and series A ventures thereby starting to work together with entrepreneurs in various stages of their companies ranging from ideation phase to initial traction. We follow a very long-term investment approach investing significant amounts throughout the lifecycle of the companies. We have invested in over 50 companies to date. At Picus we work in a culture combining the discipline of a financial investor with the creativity and pragmatism of an entrepreneur. We follow a comprehensive and well-structured investment approach in order to identify the most attractive and ambitious investment opportunities in our target industries and geographies. Within our core investment team every member has a distinctive industry competence and a functional or geographic focus. We are working closely together with our portfolio companies to develop large and successful market leaders. This comprises in particular leveraging our marketing & sales expertise and our global market perspective to provide strategic advice, providing HR management to grant access to top talent, connecting our portfolio companies with our broad B2B & investor network as well as supporting the fundraising process.

Picus Capital

10x Founders is a network-driven investor backed by over 200 entrepreneurs and angels. The founding partners (Andreas Etten, Andrej Henkler, Claudius Jablonka, Felix Haas, Jan Becker, Jan Reichelt and Robert Wuttke) have made more than 300 investments and continue this early-stage investing now within 10x Founders. At the beginning of 2021, they came together with the vision to build the best early-stage investor for Europe’s most ambitious next startup founders. The goal is to back the next generation of founders to build global tech leaders out of Europe. The “Entrepreneur-to-Entrepreneur” investment platform is the backbone of 10x Founders and helps to connect the best founders with the best and most suitable co-investors.

10x Founders

Flixfounders

XAnge is a Franco-German team of venture capital investors that manages €450 million and invests in digital, deeptech, and impact startups. It is the innovation brand of the Siparex group, a major player in French private equity. XAnge is a key European investor in early-stage startups and is looking for game-changing startups and entrepreneurs who rock the code[s]. The Paris, Ile-de-France-located company was founded in 2004.

XAnge

Activant is a global investment firm that partners with high-growth companies that are transforming commerce. The firm was founded in 2015 by Steve Sarracino and has offices in Greenwich, Connecticut and Berlin, Germany.

Activant Capital

Canaan is an early stage venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs with visionary ideas. With $5B under management, a diversified fund and over 190 exits to date, Canaan has invested in some of the world's leading technology and healthcare companies over the past 30 years. Canaan’s focus areas include fintech, enterprise/cloud, marketplaces, frontier tech, biopharma, digital health, and medtech.

Canaan Partners

Heliad's mission is to empower both entrepreneurs and investors. We find, fund, and support market-leading companies across various verticals and regions to power their next phase of growth. As a listed company and through our strong team and strategic partners, we support companies pre, at, and post IPO and act as a gateway to public equity capital markets.  Our evergreen structure allows us to act independently of usual fund lifecycles. It provides our shareholders with unique access to pre-IPO market returns without any restrictions or limitations regarding investment size and term commitment.

Heliad AG

GR Capital is a pan-European venture fund with a panoramic view. We combine broad perspective, deep analysis and clear focus. To back fast growth tech companies with proven teams, models and scalability. Across health, wealth, housing and mobility.  Our purpose is to power their growth through capital and connections. So they can expand their market, talent pool, operations and opportunities.

GR Capital

WorkMotion

WorkMotion is a global HR platform that enables companies to hire and onboard employees internationally. WorkMotion hire, pays, and manages remote employees from around the world with just a push of a button.  Founded in 2020, the company is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.

<div>German firm WorkMotion is a global HR platform that supports organizations to onboard and manage remote employees. It assumes legal responsibility in global hiring through its Employer of Record (EoR) services, available in over 160 countries. This includes setting up employment contracts in compliance with local labor laws, processing payslips, and tax registration. It also offers a direct employment option whereby the business (customer) assumes legal responsibility.</div>

Distributed workforces require new solutions for office operations, HR, payment, and more.

Remote Work Infrastructure

Check out the 22-slide pitch deck an ex-Uber GM used to raise $50 million for his HR platform WorkMotion

<div>
 
 German firm WorkMotion is a global HR platform that supports organizations to onboard and manage remote employees. It assumes legal responsibility in global hiring through its Employer of Record (EoR) services, available in over 160 countries. This includes setting up employment contracts in compliance with local labor laws, processing payslips, and tax registration. It also offers a direct employment option whereby the business (customer) assumes legal responsibility.
 
 
 WorkMotion&rsquo;s pricing ranges between EUR 349-EUR 649 (~USD 370-695) per employee across its EoR and direct employment offering.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 As of April 2024, the company served over 600 enterprises including brands such as Flixbus, Sumup and Valtech.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In its latest funding round (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/11309">
 June 2022
 </a>
 ), WorkMotion raised USD 40 million in equity and USD 10 million in debt financing (Series B funding) led by Canaan. The funds were raised to expand the automation and technological capabilities of its proprietary Global Talent OS platform, enable users to reduce spending on additional infrastructure to onboard, and manage global talent. The company also planned to invest part of the funds for new product development.
 
</div>

ActivTrak is a cloud-based productivity monitoring software provider. The platform offers data and analytics which can be used to detect workplace productivity gaps. The platform collects data from employee activity logs and computer screenshots, although it does not log keystrokes or record video of a user’s screen. ActivTrak also facilitates a range of tasks for admins such as blocking websites, flagging suspicious activities, IP address connections, and monitoring web, and app traffic.Other features offered include productivity reports and coaching, headcount and workload management and personal insights. In November 2023, the company added capabilities to measure the usage of AI tools, automatically detecting and classifying the use of such tools and websites to help organizations manage and improve AI adoption across the workforce.Activtrak generates revenue via monthly subscriptions (USD 10 and USD 17) per user, and custom pricing for larger enterprises.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, over 9,500 enterprises used ActivTrak’s platform, notably including Allstate, asembia and Nobu. ActivTrak closed 2023 with a 40% growth in its customer base (adding ~2,200 customers).Funding and financialsIn November 2020, ActivTrak raised USD 50 million in a Series B round led by Sapphire Ventures. Sapphire Ventures CEO and managing director joined ActivTrak’s board as part of the deal. The new proceeds were earmarked for scaling global sales and marketing campaigns, expansion of its platform using AI driven analytics, and improving integration with its technology partners.

ActivTrak

inFeedo is a people predictive analytics company based in India. The Y Combinator-backed startup founded in 2013 is currently focused on “Amber” (launched in 2016), an AI-enabled bot that helps manage employee engagement, predict attrition, and get a pulse on company culture in real time. The company also offers AI-driven exit surveys and analytics to improve retention.Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, over 700,000 users across 250 organizations utilized inFeedo’s platform. Notable clients included GE Healthcare, Puma, Tata Group, and Lenovo.Funding and financialsIn its latest funding round (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9099">March 2022</a>) inFeedo raised USD 12 million in Series A funding led by Jungle Ventures, reportedly tripling its valuation from less than 18 months ago. The fresh funds will be used for its second employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) buyback for all employees and its go-to-market activities in North America. Further, the company claims it has achieved annual revenue of USD 1.6 million as of November 2020.

inFeedo

Donut provides solutions to keep employees engaged with casual conversations. Its first product, Intros, makes connections between teammates via Slack to emulate quick meetups and in-person introductions at work, which are now virtual.Donut’s new product, Watercooler, launched in October 2020. It attempts to reinvent the micro-interactions between employees at the office watercooler online. The product will integrate with Slack, where a newly-designated channel for Watercooler will be created. The product will post questions automatically within the customers’ desired frequency and pre-selected topics.The company uses a freemium subscription model with paid plans starting at approximately USD 2 per user per month.Key customers and partnershipsThe company claims it has supported four million connections (one million since the Covid-19 pandemic) across its 12,000 customers, including companies such as Okta, Zapier, Slack, The New York Times, and Invision.Funding and financialsDonut announced a USD 12 million funding round led by Accel, along with its new product, Watercooler. The USD 12 million raised was accumulated over multiple rounds before the Covid-19 pandemic, with proceeds earmarked for product development.

Donut

Matter is an employee feedback platform founded by Brett Hellman. Hellman was the founder of messaging app “Hall”, which was founded in 2011 and later sold to Atlassian for USD 20 million in 2015.Matter uses 360-degree feedback to evaluate skills in employees which are linked to career success. The platform links skills such as influence, inclusiveness, empathy, resourcefulness, and multitasking to evaluations. Matter is currently available in beta.

Matter

Mesh is a Y Combinator-backed company that allows employees to set goals, track tasks, share feedback, and engage in one-on-ones. The company also offers an AI coach (Mesh Maven) to help employees stay in line with their key objectives, improve the quality of feedback provided and summarize 1:1s. Mesh also offers nudges and surveys to improve employee engagement alongside relevant analytics.The company generates revenue via monthly subscriptions per user, priced at USD 4 (Base) and USD 7 (Premium).&nbsp;Key customers and partnershipsAs of April 2024, the company served over 100+ enterprises, including NTT Data, Grant Thornton and Groww. The platform also offers integrations with third-party software such as Gmail, Microsoft Teams and Slack, among others.Funding and financialsIn its most recent funding round (<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/9768">April 2022</a>) Mesh raised USD 11 million in Series A funding led by RTP Global. The fresh funds were earmarked to expand its global footprint across the US and APAC regions. In line with this, the company planned to expand its headcount across the engineering and sales departments.

Mesh

Companies offering tools to infer employee morale (through surveys and quick assessments) and productivity, including functions for goal setting, review, and feedback.

Companies that offer the entire spectrum of HR tools including payroll processing benefits, onboarding, compliance, analytics, scheduling etc

Companies providing either standalone or combined payroll and benefits services to businesses.

EoR - Companies that assist businesses in hiring distributed teams globally in compliance with foreign labor laws. EoRs become the legal employer of offshore employees. Solutions include payroll, benefits, and taxes.

PEO - Companies that offer similar services to EoRs but establish a co-employment arrangement with businesses and do not become the legal employer.

Companies offering tools such as chatbots, surveys, games, and other activities to infer, assess and improve employee morale and sentiment.

Companies that provide a centralized space for employees to access internal and external resources, enterprise applications, and enable workers to communicate across departments, and stay up to date on organizational announcements.

Solutions in this industry hub are predominantly offered under a B2B SaaS model

Employee and performance management solutions use AI/Ml to infer engagement insights and sentiment analysis

Offers tools for companies to hire contractors globally, and conduct employee and performance management

WorkMotion

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