By Reid Christian
By focusing on product design and on all employees as users at a company, Factorial is unlocking one of the largest opportunities in all of business software. Factorial is a people data platform for the modern workforce, that automates the workflows and centralizes the fragmented HR software category. This is particularly critical today, as small to mid-sized companies build and manage teams across geographies and manage working from home.
In 2007, the founders of Zendesk set out with a similar vision of consumer-grade designed application for customer support representatives, and today the company and its “Zen” buddha logo has grown to be a $8B public company. Zendesk and Factorial were both founded in Europe and share two of the same investors from the early days. Most importantly, each company designed and built a product for the end employee, not just for the administrator or manager.
11 years ago, my partner Devdutt Yellurkar invested with Christoph Janz and led Zendesk’s Series A out of Europe. Working with Christoph again for the second time, we’re excited to welcome Factorial to the CRV portfolio as they announce their $15M Series A led by CRV. Additionally, I’m thrilled to share that I’ll be joining the board.
I first reached out to Jordi Romero, the founder and CEO of Factorial, in early 2019. I explained that I was pursuing an investment thesis around HR platforms built for global workforces. It took nine months before we finally connected live (thanks for the help, Christoph!). After studying the market and meeting the entire Factorial team in Barcelona, it became clear to me that I had to be in business with them. The team was incredibly strong, the product was exceptionally promising, and the opportunity was enormous.
We’re honored to lead this round and to partner with Factorial on their mission to build the Zendesk of HR.
