We are inspired by all the companies that continue to achieve growth milestones in an ever-changing market. These founders and teams demonstrate the different journeys to success, innovative ideas can take. 

This has been a great week for remote first startups and diversity in innovation. Commitment to remote work, inclusive teams and continuous growth practices are an integral part of how talent.ai chooses these highlights. 

Congratulations to all the founders!

Seed

Oplog 

CEO & Co-Founder – Halit Develioglu

CTO – Arda Develioglu

Founded in 2013 Oplog offers fulfilment services aimed at eCommerce companies of various sizes, using software and robotics tools. Helping businesses expand markets without physical limitations enabling companies to operate internationally thanks to its services. 

The Istanbul-based raised a significant $22 million in this latest investment funding rounds getting its Seed in a round led by Esas Private Equity.

Oplog, which already has a presence in over 8 countries, will use this latest investment to open a new warehouse equipped with their signature robotics tools in the UK. 

Series A

Klaus 

CEO & Co-Founder – Martin Kõiva

CRO & Co-Founder – Kair Käsper

Klaus is a customer service app that enhances companies’ client facing performance by running effective QA processes, training agents and therefore improving client retention. 

Its founder Martin Kõiva believes that improving customer services starts by analyzing previous interactions, and then delivering continuous training for agents as opposed to simply relying on feedback. 

Latvia-based Klaus just secured a significant $12 Million, Series A investment led by Action Capital. The funds will be used to expand the development of Klaus’ software to develop new capabilities.  It’s also growing with the goal to expand its talent pool from 60 to 100 members in the next 12 months.

Hadean 

CEO & Co-Founder – Craig Beddis

COO & Co-Founder – Miriam Keshani

Hadean is helping companies build out their Metaverse worlds. Through distributed cloud platforms, which provide the foundation for web 3.0 development and metaverse expansion. 

Their clients include Microsoft and Minecraft among other big names, and the mission is to use their technology as a bridge between the physical and digital world making the Metaverse a reality.

London-based Hadean received £30 Million led by Molten Ventures, but also includes noteworthy investors in its funding rounds including Epic Games.  The investment is helping Hadean expand metaverse capabilities and increase scalable projects. 

Lunio 

CEO & Co-Founder – Neil Andrew

COO & Co-Founder – Segev Hochberg 

Lunio helps companies protect their marketing investment by removing bots, IVT and invalid clicks from their paid ads. With ad fraud claiming up to $35 Billion from enterprises, Lunio’s market is expanding and addresses a significant financial issue.

The UK-based company uses it tool WebAssembly to leverage its algorithm, a choice its CEO Neil Andrew says is up to seven times faster than using traditional JavaScript. Last week the company announced it closed a $15 Million investment round led by Smedvig Capital, increasing its total funding to $17 Million to date. 

Lunio is planning to accelerate its market presence in both Europe and North America and grow its total talent headcount from 43 to 55. 

Penpot 

CEO & Co-Founder – Pablo Ruiz-Múzquiz

Penpot self-titles as the world’s first Open Source design and prototyping platform, created for cross-domains teams.  Iit is fully web-based, functioning on open web standards and not dependent on operating systems.

Madrid-native Penpot has had two successful funding rounds, with their Series A of $8 Million led by VCs Decibel Partners having just been secured. 

The company will spend its funds on the development of more tools for designers and developers as well as the expansion of its community. Penpot has already added some huge names to its user base such as Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla.  The company already has 10.000 plus unique. users in total.   Penpot definitely has designs on a fast growth future!

Series B

Disperse.io 🏣

CEO & Co-Founder – Felix Neufeld

CTO & Co-Founder – Chris Hardin

London based Disperse.io is a productivity systems creator for construction projects.  The company want to reimagine how construction projects are managed, using its platform to improve on-site productivity and overall operation and delivery. Its construction project management platform was founded in 2015 and last week secured an additional $16 Million in funding on its Series B round. 

The investment is led by 2150, a fund that already is already a specialist in the construction and Urban Technology niche. Funding will be used to both improve product capabilities and boost market push in the Americas.

Not so dark 🌯

CEO & Co-Founder – Clément Benoit

CTO & Co-Founder –  Alexandre Haggai

Not So Dark offers the restaurant industry solutions to create delivery-focused revenue. Its food tech platform provides kitchens with help in determining estimates, delivery trends and helps cuts prep times.  The solution uses Machine Learning to reduce expenses and limit potential losses.   

The latest investment round is an impressive $80 Million led by Kharis Capital and Verlinvest, which the Paris-born startup plans to use to build but a huge virtual franchise of restaurants. Not so dark is currently 150 people but expect that to grow dynamically post funding. 

Seems like these guys definitely have the recipe for success!

Airplane 

CEO & Co-Founder – Ravi Parikh

CTO & Co-Founder – Joshua Ma

Airplane is a software platform and development tool for engineers to create and build internal tools, specializing in software engineering and information technology. Founded last year in San Francisco the company has scaled quickly from Seed to the Series B announced last week.

This latest investment was led by Thrive Capital which added $32 Million to its funding rounds.  Funding will be geared toward growing the platform capabilities and adding new tools for engineers to build stuff faster.

Arthur.ai 

CEO & Co-Founder  – Adam Wenchel

COO – Hillary Clark 

Arthur.ai is a machine learning and monitoring platform that helps deploy enterprise-grade AI systems to improve productivity and performance. The New York based company works with large-scale industry partners in finance, healthcare, insurance and others. 

Its latest Series B investment round signed last week of $42 Million and has been led by Acrew Capital and Greycroft. The company expects to grow its platform performance and expand markets plus add talent to its ranks. Arthur.ai which had less than 20 employees at Series A  now has 55, and its founder Adam Wenchel says talent diversity is centric to the company’s values.

Hofy – UK –  $15m 💻

CEO & Co-Founder – Sami Bouremoum

CPO & Co-Founder – Michael Ginzo

Hofy allows companies to equip new team members with the necessary things that they will need in order to work from all over the world. Ensuring a quicker onboarding, as well as securely retrieving equipment from offboarding processes. A company with a remote focus that creates solutions for global talent teams.

Last week London based Hofy closed another investment funding rounds of  $15 Million in funding led by CNP, bringing the total to over $30 Million. As the prevalence of remote work continues to grow the need for Hofy’s one click solution also grows. This latest round will go towards growing Hofy in new locations and expanding the companies offering to break out areas including IT Support.

Remote work is here to stay and so is Hofy!

Strike

CEO & Founder –  Jack Mallers

CTO – Tom Kirkpatrick

Strike is an API for merchants to accept global payments from customers.  The solution delivers global money transfers by taking advantage of Bitcoins open payment network. Strike is creating the first peer-to-peer payment software native to Bitcoin. 

Chicago-based Strike raised an $80 Million investment led by Ten31. The remote first company already works with some of the world’s biggest eCommerce platforms like Shopify and NRC, and we are sure will be adding many more to that list. The funds will go to expanding partnerships and growth.

Pigment – Paris – $65m 📊

Co- CEO & Co-Founder – Romain Niccoli  

Co- CEO & Co-Founder – Eléonore Crespo

Pigment is an integrated business planning and forecasting platform aimed at helping companies make better decisions based on data insights. The Paris-based company has already worked with an impressive 18 unicorn startups and plans to add even more.

Last week it received significant backing from IVP and Meritech Capital amongst other VC’s who invested $65 Million.  Adding this to its previous funding, Pigment has amassed more than $100 Million in funding so far. The latest investment will go to product development and targeting the US market. 

Companies looking to make sense of their internal planning and processes during increasingly volatile times are driving demand for Pigment.

Pimcore – Austria/Paris – $12m 

CEO & Co-Founder – Dietmar Rietsch 

COO – Klaus Schobesberger 

Pimcore delivers seamless data and customer experience management to drive business value through an open-source software platform. Pimcore is also disrupting traditional licenced solutions with its open-source alternative. 

Its latest Series B funding rounds investment was led by Germany’s technology fund Nordwind Growth and added $12 Million to the company’s funds, and will be used in expanding the Austrian company’s reach globally.

Flatfile

CEO & Co-Founder – David Boskovic

COO & Co-Founder – Eric Crane 

Flatfile is an AI-assisted platform that provides efficient data onboarding solutions for companies so they can import, upload, map and standardize customer data quickly, in one place. 

Last week saw a huge milestone for Flatline as it secured an important $50 Million in Series B funding.  The round was led by Tiger Global, bringing its total funding to over $100 Million and helping to continue to evolve its offering for global enterprise level. 

Originating in Colorado but now operating remote first, Flatline is already being used by over 500 enterprises and is sure to be growing its reach even more.