Cobee closes €40 million in a new series B round to bring the benefits revolution to new markets
Exciting stuff! At Cobee, we’ve just closed €40 million in a new series B round as part of our benefits revolution. Our objective is clear: to work every day to improve well-being in companies through flexibility, innovation and attracting the best talent.
At this point in our journey, we are proud to be supported by two great British investment companies that will help us to achieve even more. They are Octopus Ventures, an investment fund closely linked with tech start-ups such as ManyPets or Cazoo, and Notion Capital, which also has an interest in fintechs like Currencycloud or GoCardless, amongst others.
This new injection of capital comes at a crucial time for Cobee, following a busy year in which we’ve improved our product, developed new services and, above all, committed to strengthening all our business areas with the best talent. And what is our objective? To continue to grow in Spain and Portugal and begin to operate in other countries, as will soon be the case with Mexico.
More innovation and talent to improve well-being in companies
“Although the current market situation is complicated, we also know that if there is an ‘investable’ company around right now, then it is Cobee, due to our good metrics and efficiency we have demonstrated in the process. With this efficient growth and the market opportunity available to us, we simply required the additional capital to seize the opportunity before anyone else did,” states Borja Aranguren, co-founder and CEO of Cobee.
Since the latest round in 2021, a lot has happened at Cobee to justify this new leap forward. We have completely renewed our platforms in order to make them much more user-friendly, both for human resources departments and the thousands of users who have now activated their services with our company. Due to all these improvements and all our teamwork, we have managed to triple our business in just 12 months. Yes indeed: triple!
As we know that our benefits revolution still has a lot further to go, so fat this year we have committed to improving our business areas through new hirings. Some new colleagues have worked previously in other companies which at some stage have been in the same position in which Cobee finds itself today, such as Binance, Cabify and Gympass. All their experience will help us scale our products at an international level in the most satisfactory way.
“Both Octopus Ventures and Notion Capital had already analysed our market and other European start-ups, but were still not convinced. However, with us, it was a perfect match,” says Borja. Furthermore, he adds that “for Cobee, it’s very important for investors to understand our market and share the vision of what we want to build.”
For his part, Nick Sando, Principal at Octopus Ventures, points out that “the increase in competition and mobility in the employment market has transformed employee benefits. They have gone from being a ‘pleasant’ to ‘necessary’ tool for attracting and retaining talent. Cobee can play a crucial role in the employee benefit markets.”
Furthermore, Itxaso del Palacio, a partner in Notion Capital, states that “we are delighted to work with Cobee on this journey to help employees make the very most of their benefits. What is unique about Cobee, in comparison with other competitors in the sector, is their infrastructure. Cobee has built a flexible and scalable platform, which can be expanded to countries with tax benefits and highly regulated benefit schemes.”
Internationalisation, integrations and new products
What will we do at Cobee with the €40 million from the new round? Above all, continue to achieve our main ambition: extend the benefits revolution to the greatest number possible of companies.
Until now, Cobee has focused on localised products with a tax exemption, such as the `popular meal vouchers or travel tickets. The following step is to focus more on other macrotrends that are increasingly present in the benefits market for companies, and which don’t necessarily have to offer a tax advantage. This is the case with all the services linked to physical or emotional well-being, for example.
In our plans for the immediate future, we want to include this new benefits catalogue within our platforms in order to be increasingly aware of the needs of employees.
For that reason, we hope to continue to grow in terms of staff. In the next 18 months, there will be over 200 of us: highly qualified professionals who will help us promote this benefits revolution.
Our diverse and multicultural teams are ready to make the international leap to Latin America with our arrival in Mexico, and to continue to grow in southern Europe, beyond Spain and Portugal.
In this internationalisation, it is crucial for us to continue in our commitment to a simple, user-friendly and integrable platform with other technological solutions. We have just established a partnership with Factorial and Personio. In the mid-term, we will announce new integrations at both a national and international level in order to facilitate the work of human resources departments in Spain and abroad.
Cobee was founded in 2019 by Borja Aranguren, Nacho Travesí and Dani Olea and we have succeeded in getting this far thanks to all the people who have believed in our company. We are delighted to continue to grow with the support of our customers and employees who use our card and also with the support of our investors.
Thank you for putting your trust in us!
