Flare, an Australian startup specialising in HR and payroll technology, has secured a Series B investment of $21 million, led by New York VC firm Point72 Ventures.
The round includes Australian funds Acorn Capital, Tank Stream Ventures, Reinventure and BridgeLane.
The investment caps off a year of growth for Flare. Since the company’s last major investment of $7 million in August 2017 it has doubled its customer base to over 200 clients. Its platform is currently used by over 100,000 employees across Australia.
The new funds will contribute to the local growth of Flare’s onboarding, fully-integrated HR and payroll product suite, and its expanding financial wellness and benefits platform.
This round serves as Point72 Ventures first investment in an Australian company. Point72 partner Pete Casella will take a position on the board of Flare.
“Flare has reimagined the role that a workplace can play in your financial life. By focusing on the employer – employee relationship, they can empower individuals to take control of their money at the source, driving financial wellness across entire organizations” said Pete Casella.
For Flare founders Dan Cohen and James Windon the new funding round is an opportunity to build out the long term goals of the company.
“We want to level the playing field in Human Resources and Payroll – that’s why we give away our core suite of tools for free, so that we can help every company automate their processes, simplify their onboarding and payroll and become an incredible place to work. We’ve built a platform that lets Aussie businesses build an employee experience that competes with Facebook or Google,” Flare CEO, Dan Cohen said.
“We’re now starting to see the results of our effort to change workplace culture and financial wellness in workplaces across Australia. We will be building a world class technical team and rolling out a series of tools and technologies over the next two years designed to achieve that goal.”
Managing Director James Windon said, “We want to help Australian workers take their first steps to manage their career development and financial health. When people have more information and control over their money, particularly their pay, they can make smarter decisions about how to spend it. This is something that Point72 have embraced and have believed in.”
Founded in 2015 in Sydney, Flare provides a complete HR suite with a fully integrated payroll solution, enabling businesses to transform the way their employees engage with the company. Through an open API, the platform integrates with a wide range of existing products, including leading accounting suites and systems.