The list of unicorns with a Barcelona stamp is starting to take shape. It was eDreams that paved the way and became the first Spanish company valued at over 1 billion euros. It was 2014 and they had to wait until 2019 to add a new name, Glovo. Since then, adhesions have accelerated, with Wallbox (2021) and Travelperk (2022), further proof of the dynamism experienced by the local entrepreneurial ecosystem. Before the end of the year, the latest addition to the list has arrived, Factorial, a startup specializing in human resources tasks for SMEs.
Factorial, a startup created by Jordi Romero, Bernat Farrero, and Pau Ramon in 2016, has just closed a Series C round for 123.6 million euros (120 million dollars), thus surpassing the 1 billion euro valuation mark. "It's not a metric that matters to us, but it excites us because it helps more clients get to know us," explains Romero in statements to The New Barcelona Post. The round was led by Atomico and included the participation of GIC and all previous investors in the company, including Tiger Global, CRV, K-Fund, and Creandum. Following the round, Atomico partner, Luca Eisenstecken, has joined the company's board.
This new stage at Factorial follows a trail of exponential growth, with increases of more than 200% in annual revenues since 2019 and going from 70 to 7,000 clients. And, since the Series B round for 67.3 million euros in 2021, the startup based on Àlaba street has managed to triple this growth, reaching a workforce of 800 professionals distributed among offices in Brazil, Mexico, and Spain.
With the resources from the latest round and its new category as a unicorn, Factorial plans to strengthen itself in the markets where it is already present ---Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Italy, Portugal, France, Mexico, and Brazil---, as well as open a new office in Miami. The startup has set a goal of attracting a target audience of ten million companies in the countries where it operates. For 2022, they expect to approach 10,000, a figure they plan to double next year.
The Series C round will also help them expand and improve the functionalities of the software they have created to facilitate the daily lives of small and medium-sized businesses. The platform conceived by Romero, Farrero, and Ramon, three computer engineers, is the result of the problems they encountered in their first startups, Itnig and Redbooth, in the Software as a Service (SaaS) and e-commerce sectors. "We realized that companies were functioning very poorly and that technology had to be applied," Romero recalls.
Among the tasks that Factorial already facilitates, automating and centralizing them in a single tool, are the hiring and onboarding of new employees, leave management, payroll payment, and time control. With the round, they expect to incorporate new services such as personnel management and objective evaluation, or a debit card for expenses. Factorial, which began monetizing its product in 2019, has not yet reported profits and does not break down its revenue figures.