Eurazeo leads $28m round for Peopledoc

José Rojo
01 October 2015

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Eurazeo Croissance has backed a $28m funding round for French HR-focused cloud storage service PeopleDoc alongside Accel Partners, Kernel Investissements and Alven Capital.

Eurazeo led the round investing $19m of the total $28m. The figure falls in line with the GP's investment strategy, typically looking at €15-20m tickets for digital companies.

PeopleDoc is the third French technology business backed by the firm so far in 2015, after leading a €31m investment in peer-to-peer lending platform Pret d'Union in July and a €33m round for online marketplace Vestiaire Collective in September.

According to the GP, its interest in PeopleDoc stems from the company's strong development both in Europe and the US.

Having doubled its sales figures year-on-year for the past three years, the cloud-based HR service has reportedly secured 150 clients within the last 18 months and increased turnover fourfold.

The fresh $28m will assist PeopleDoc as it looks to further increase operations in the US and Europe, with plans to enter new countries in the latter region.

Previous funding
PeopleDoc was first backed by institutional investors in June 2010, when Alven Capital joined entrepreneur Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet and other previous shareholders during a €1.7m round. The investment was followed by a further €1.5m in March 2012 from Alven alongside Kernel, investment firm Fadièse and the founders.

In May 2014, the company stepped up fundraising as it secured $17.5m of funding in a series-B, led by Accel and backed by all previous investors.

Company
Founded in 2007, PeopleDoc provides cloud-based storage services for HR departments. The business helps clients such as Starbucks, Natixis, Auchan and American Express as they digitise all their HR-related paperwork and their teams are outsourced.

Headquartered in Paris with additional offices in New York and Boston, the company employs 100 professionals.

People
Eurazeo's work on the deal was coordinated by CEO Virginie Morgon and Yann-Hervé du Rusquec, who leads the Eurazeo Croissance arm. Jonathan Benhamou co-founded PeopleDoc and is the company's current CEO.