Meet Charlie.
The free HR platform for small businesses announces £1m seed round.
For the better part of the last decade, we’ve been obsessed with building companies out of The Eleven.
Along the way, we’ve endured frustrations that have become all too familiar. Boring everyday admin that gets in the way of doing what we really love. Too many spreadsheets, too many emails. We felt that much of it could and should be automated, and that while building a company is hard, running one shouldn’t be.
At Charlie, we’re building the operating system for your company. A platform that quietly and effectively automates many of those tedious headaches and gives founders and entrepreneurs more of the very thing they need most: time.
We’re beginning with any organisation’s most important asset — its people.
CharlieHR is the free HR platform for small businesses, automating many of the administrative burdens that accompany managing teams. It’s built directly from our experience — and mistakes — scaling companies of our own.
CharlieHR onboards new employees, collects their information for payroll and manages all of their sensitive data securely in the cloud. The platform acts as an online directory for your team, enabling easy access of contact information and edit of your personal details, while allowing you to request/approve time off and track sick days. As a team leader, you’re afforded an easy oversight of all that’s happening within your company.
CharlieHR is free, but as the platform learns about your business, we can offer you products and services specifically tailored to you and your team. We’re building an intelligent marketplace that understands what you need and when you need it most.
Take, by way of one example, new government legislation that requires all UK companies to automatically enrol their people into a workplace pension scheme. CharlieHR can quickly and easily ensure you comply with the law, passing information through to your selected provider on a monthly basis and automating regulatory communication, while being the most convenient and cost effective way of investing in your most valuable asset: your team.
We launched a little over six months ago and there are now over 650 companies in more than 20 countries benefitting from CharlieHR. Today we’re announcing a £1m seed investment round led by Connect Ventures. They’re an awesome outfit who share our passion and vision for how great product can solve deep rooted problems at the heart of scaling companies. They’re joined by early-stage fund Seedcamp as well as a group of angel investors that includes Nick Hungerford (Founder of Nutmeg), James Wise (Partner at Balderton), Alastair Mitchell (Founder of Huddle) and Ian Hogarth (Founder of Songkick), among others.
It’s a small first step, but it’s very much in the right direction. We’re excited and humbled in equal measure to be joined by such brilliant brains, and we’re already enjoying working alongside them. The learning is immense.
We believe it’s the small companies of today that will solve the important problems of tomorrow. Charlie itself might not change the world — it’s unlikely to lift millions out of poverty, solve world peace or cure a life threatening disease — but we’re building the tools to empower the people that will.
And that’s a journey we’re extremely proud to be a part of.
Onward,
Team Charlie. x
