Paris, March 24, 2022 – Neobrain, a SaaS solution for managing skills HR based on AI and Big Data, has just raised 20 M€ in Series A, a world record for a Talent Marketplace solution. This round of financing, led by Alter Equity, Crédit Mutuel Innovation and XAnge via La Poste Ventures and its historical investor, Breega, will allow Neobrain to expand its HR offer and accelerate its deployment in France and internationally.
Neobrain: a start-up in hyper growth since its launch
Founded in 2018 by Paul Courtaud, Neobrain develops a platform to enable companies to anticipate changes in jobs and to enhance the skills and motivations of employees. In just four years, more than 80 major accounts and over 300,000 employees have adopted Neobrain.
Companies such as BOSCH, Natixis, Edenred, Afpa, Sage, Promod, rely on Neobrain to better identify their current and future needs in skills and to respond with adapted HR strategies. Employees benefit from a personalized follow-up allowing them to objectify their skills and to orientate themselves towards training or new jobs within the company.
What contributes to Neobrain's growth?
Thanks to its relevant offering, AI technology, and outstanding user experience, the company is growing exponentially with revenues tripling every year since 2019, and a team that has grown from 15 to 90 people.
“In an environment where the war for talent is raging, organizations need, more than ever, to know their skills and to develop them in order to retain their employees” says Paul Courtaud, CEO of Neobrain.
Thanks to this second round, we will be able to better support companies by helping them to hire and develop talent.
Financing the internationalization of Neobrain
Designed from the outset for international use, the solution analyzes data from several million job offers in 50 countries on a daily basis to predict job market trends. This funding will allow Neobrain, currently present in France and Portugal, to accelerate its international expansion.
“As of 2019, we have launched our subsidiary in Portugal. The internationalization we are planning for the next few months will be on a larger scale. With the acceleration of our business in 2021, we have acquired great capabilities to adapt and move forward ever faster!”, explains Paul Courtaud, CEO of Neobrain.
40%of the amount raised dedicated to R&D
Recognized as a true laboratory and research center in Europe in AI, Neobrain will devote 40% of the amount raised to enriching its technology to enable HR departments to better support their employees and manage the performance of their organizations. Neobrain is focusing its developments on four main guidelines:
- Provide managers with management tools to help them develop their teams’ skills and identify internal talent;
- Strengthen business resilience by investing in strategic workforce planning to enable HR teams to simulate the impact of strategic decisions on their teams;
- Provide dynamic visibility of available skills and associated motivations to meet the strategic challenges of organizations;
- Facilitate the meeting of supply and demand of skills internally with the Talent Marketplace system to consolidate the versatility of the teams and optimize each internal skill .
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About Neobrain:
Founded in 2018 by Paul Courtaud, a young entrepreneur who was only 22 years old at the time, NEOBRAIN is a start-up specializing in the use of AI for skills management and Workforce Planning. It is the originator of a technology (platforms and application) that allows to anticipate skills emerging needs and to identify gaps with available resources. Among its 80 clients: SAGE, TotalEnergies and BOSCH… In 2020, the company raised more than 3M€ in order to continue its growth and, in one year, went from 15 to 80 employees spread between Paris and Lisbon. More information on neobrain.io
About Alter Equity:
Alter Equity is an independent investment management company born of the desire to finance the environmental and social transitions that our society needs towards a more sustainable, more generous, more human and globally more responsible economy. It was the first in France to support the public interest in its dual social and environmental dimensions and to seek a financial return that remunerates the risk taken by its subscribers. It was the first in France to support the concept of positive impact investment. It is currently deploying its second fund of €110m, investing amounts of €3m to €11m in the capital of European companies whose activities are useful to people or the environment. As a condition of its investment, the company must commit to a rigorous CSR approach, which requires, in particular, a carbon footprint assessment and the opening of its capital to all employees.
About Crédit Mutuel Innovation:
Crédit Mutuel Innovation is the venture capital subsidiary of Crédit Mutuel Equity (€3.5 billion of capital under management). It invests between €1 and €20 million in innovative companies in the digital, life sciences and deeptech sectors. Crédit Mutuel Innovation enables entrepreneurs to develop their growth potential by connecting them to companies in its ecosystems. Because it takes more than 5 years to create a world leader, Crédit Mutuel Innovation invests its own capital on a long-term basis and builds long-term relationships with the entrepreneurs it supports. www.creditmutuel-equity.eu
About XAnge and La Poste Ventures:
XAnge is an early-stage investment fund with €600 million under management, based in Paris and Munich. Its investment team supports European entrepreneurs who aim to change everyday life through technology, investing amounts from €500,000 to €10 million at the seed stage. With an investment thesis focused on making technology accessible to the greatest number of people, XAnge invests in the deeptech, healthcare, fintech, Saas and e-commerce sectors. XAnge has for example supported Lydia (Finance), Welcome to the Jungle (Human Resources), Believe (Music), MrSpex (eCommerce) and Ledger (cryptocurrencies). XAnge operates the La Poste Ventures fund alongside La Poste experts.
La Poste Ventures is the €50 million Corporate Venture Capital of La Poste Group, based in Paris and operated by XAnge. La Poste Ventures is involved in Seed and Series A financing, investing amounts from €300,000 to €3 million. Its investment thesis focuses on strategic sectors for La Poste, including SaaS, transport and logistics, healthcare, the ecological transition and the circular economy.
About Breega:
Breega is an investment fund that finances European high-tech startups from Seed to Series B. Breega is much more than a simple investor. Created by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, Breega supports its portfolio startups at every stage of their development and offers them free operational expertise (HR, biz dev, marketing and legal) as well as international development opportunities. Breega is notably an investor in Exotec (robotics), Curve (Fintech), Gojob (HR tech) and Didomi (Adtech/Regtech).
