Brazilian HR startup Flash raises $22M in a Tiger International-led Sequence B spherical of investment – TechCrunch
Flash, a startup that has advanced a versatile advantages platform for Brazilian firms and staff, has raised $22 million in a Sequence B spherical of investment led by way of Tiger International Control.
Monashees (which led Flash’s Sequence A), International Founders Capital (who sponsored Flash’s seed spherical), Citius and Kauffman Fellows additionally participated within the financing.
Based in 2019 by way of adolescence pals Ricardo Salem, Guilherme Lane and Pedro Lane, Flash is out to redesign what it perspectives as an antiquated method of providing advantages to staff in South The usa’s biggest nation.
The São Paulo-based corporate has constructed a versatile receive advantages control app supplied with a Mastercard so that you could substitute what has traditionally been equipped within the type of “old-fashioned, commoditized and necessary” meal/meals and transportation “vouchers.”
“Our first product was once a reinvention of the voucher that by way of Brazilian exertions legislation, was once one thing of a compulsory receive advantages for all firms to provide as a part of reimbursement,” Salem stated. “There are 4 conventional incumbents, owned by way of the banks, that held 95% of the marketplace with very old-fashioned merchandise and fats margins, and exploitation in all places.”
Past that, Flash took its providing a step additional by way of giving firms a strategy to configure their advantages providing so staff can “make a selection and arrange their advantages as they would like” by way of Flash’s app market and card, famous Salem.
The corporate should be doing one thing proper.
Since its inception, Flash has grown its buyer base to 4,000 firms, starting from startups and SMEs to enterprises.
Closing 12 months, Flash grew “10x” by way of all metrics. It went from 10,000 staff to 100,000 the usage of its platform. Up to now, this 12 months that quantity has already swelled to 250,000. Whilst the corporate declined to show onerous earnings figures, Lane stated the expansion in consumers is mirrored within the corporate’s GMV. Flash has additionally grown from about 50 to 200 staff over the last 8 months.
Symbol Credit: Flash
Originally of the pandemic when firms have been sending staff house and in need of to lend a hand them pay expenses for electrical energy and utilities, there wasn’t any tool to lend a hand them achieve this, Salem stated.
“So we constructed one in our app, which leverages our pockets and it was once ready to learn the bar or QR code of the application supplier,” he added. “It turned into a highly regarded receive advantages.”
Inside that very same pockets, Flash has constructed any other product — an incentive and rewards platform..
Even with all its early good fortune, Flash has only a 1% marketplace percentage so believes “there’s quite a lot of room to develop.” And, it perspectives itself as “a lot more of a horizontal play than a geographical play.”
“We’re fixing different ache issues for corporations in Brazil now, and that’s our plan for the fast time period,” Lane stated.
“To start with, we noticed this as an overly cool factor very trendy tech firms sought after,” Salem stated. “However remaining 12 months proved that this isn’t only a midsize tech corporate product. That is for each worker from tech staff to blue collar staff to CEOs. Everybody has a versatile receive advantages want and other life and want a product tailored to all of the ones.”
International Founders Capital’s Fabricio Pettena led Flash’s seed spherical again in 2019. He stated he have been looking for disruption within the house for “a very long time.”
“Since this is a giant marketplace in Brazil because of legislation, the incumbents in point of fact rip off eating places and others,” Pettena informed TechCrunch.
He stated he knew instantly he sought after to put money into Flash.
“Flash’s workforce in fact took an energetic position within the legislation exchange that allowed for versatile advantages, as a substitute of simply taking part in passive,” he stated. “Once we first met, inside quarter-hour, it was once transparent that, excluding a few main points, we already shared a not unusual imaginative and prescient for the way this disruption would happen.”
