Elevo announces a 6M€ funding round

ELEVO RAISES 6M€ TO REVOLUTIONISE PERFORMANCE AND TALENT MANAGEMENT

Elevo, the HR platform that puts collaboration back at the heart of the company by improving the employee experience, has raised 6M€ in a round led by Elaia. The funding is intended to continue developing the product and selling it to mid-caps and large accounts, and to establish a presence internationally. Elevo had already raised 1M€ from business angels in 2019.

Elevo aims to create high-performing company cultures within the new economy. Founded in 2017 by Thibault Vilon (formerly Apple and Google) and Etienne Le Scaon (formerly Work4, Criteo and YCombinator S14), it employs nearly 30 people and has already won over companies such as Audika, Aircall, Groupe Figaro, Labeyrie, Nature et Découvertes, Picard and Pennylane. Setting itself apart from generalist HR information systems centred on administrative data and payroll, Elevo chose to specialise in a segment essential to company life: performance and talent management and, more broadly, the employee experience.

"Elevo improves the employee experience by creating a bond between the company and the employee, in the service of better collective performance in organisations. The rise of remote work and remote management has shown how critical this subject is to company life, especially in a hybrid world of work. We have proved ourselves over 4 years with satisfied clients, and now want to move up a gear to make the world of work more human, to everyone's benefit," says Etienne Le Scaon, co-founder and CEO of Elevo.

From its launch in 2018, Elevo won the confidence of business angels specialising in cloud software and HR, such as Patrick Bertrand (former managing director of Cegid), Philippe Gluntz (former president for Europe at ADP) and Marc Veyron (former HR director at Carrefour Supermarchés and CapGemini Services). All of them spotted Elevo's unique positioning in its market and its potential.

With this new funding stage from Elaia, Elevo is accelerating its growth along 2 main lines in particular:

• Roll-out within large-account clients: on the strength of its success with SMEs and scale-ups, the platform's intuitive and engaging interface has now won over large-account clients, where performance and talent management is a critical competitive issue. Through its platform, Elevo is establishing itself by making the HR department the business partner of managers and operational teams.

"With Elevo we have energised our annual review campaigns. The system, adapted to our practices and our management culture, lets us reach a 90% participation rate but above all gather information indispensable to steering our policy of development and internal mobility of our human resources, to which we are particularly attached." Thierry Raulin, director of human resources and international HR projects at JC Decaux.

• Product development: Elevo brings HR the tools it needs to run assessment campaigns throughout the year and to create stimulating career paths for employees. The startup is close to completing its software offering to become the reference platform in performance and talent management. It will shortly launch a module for identifying and collecting employees' training needs, complementing agile performance tracking and 360-degree feedback. To that end, Elevo will grow its team and is looking for 20 talents, in R&D in particular.

"The digital transformation of companies, already under way for several years, is still a major issue for large groups but also for SMEs. After several successive waves of innovation in employee management, HRIS and recruitment, the HRTech challenge now lies in talent management, and more specifically in valuing the human asset, the employee, within a group, positioned as a central actor in creating value. Through the founders' past experience at companies such as Google, Apple and Criteo, at the leading edge on company culture and performance management, Elevo has captured this paradigm and offers a unique platform for managing and valuing talent." adds Pauline Roux, partner at Elaia.

Elevo SAS was advised by Chausson Finance on this deal.

Elaia is a leading European private equity firm with strong technology DNA. We invest in high-potential digital and deep tech startups from the seed stage and support them until they become world leaders. For 18 years, our commitment has been to deliver financial performance while holding strong values. We are proud to have been the first professional investor in more than 100 startups, including many successes such as Criteo (Nasdaq), Orchestra Networks (acquired by Tibco), Teads (acquired by Altice), Mirakl (valued at 1.5 billion dollars at Series D) and Shift Technology.