Omnes, Irdi Capital Investissement, UL Invest and SWEN Capital Partners invest €8.5m in PeopleSpheres to support growth and prepare for its international expansion

For immediate release – April 22, 2021

PeopleSpheres, the pioneering French leader in PaaS (Platform as a Service) solutions for human resources, has raised €8.5 million from Omnes, Irdi Capital, UL Invest and SWEN Capital Partners to support growth and prepare for its international development.

PeopleSpheres, founded by human resources software expert Philippe Bloquet, has developed an HR-specific PaaS solution that allows companies to connect and synchronize all their SaaS HR software.
The PeopleSpheres PaaS solution aims to offer a simple, unified interface to employees, managers and HR executives and more generally to coordinate the HR ecosystems of companies with 250 to 20,000 staff. PeopleSpheres also operates a marketplace for the best SaaS HR software, which is connected to its PaaS solution and covers the full scope of HR needs.
Its unique solution has been chosen by more than 260 customers in a wide range of industries. Originally financed by Odyssée Venture, management and business angels, the company and its product have now reached a stage of maturity at which they can move on to a new stage of development and growth.
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In the words of Philippe Bloquet: “We have been experiencing strong market traction for two years, in spite of Covid-19. Companies want to use the best HR SaaS solutions on the market while also having a simple, unified employee experience. The market timing is perfect for us. This fundraising enables us to enhance our sales and marketing teams, keep on adding new HR SaaS partners, develop new features based on artificial intelligence and also lay the foundations for our international expansion. We plan to rapidly recruit around forty new people for this expansion. We are excited to be moving into this new growth phase and pleased to have brought together this pool of top-tier investors.”

Omnes Partner Renaud Poulard has been won over by the PeopleSpheres solution: “The HR software-as-a-service market is booming, with a multitude of new players offering high-performance dedicated solutions. “There is a genuine need for a PaaS that enables businesses to unify and orchestrate all these software solutions. This is what PeopleSpheres offers. This market position and the wide range of complementary skills in the management team are what convinced us to invest.”

Julien Sainte-Catherine, Director at Irdi Capital Investissement, was persuaded by PeopleSpheres’ clients: “Customer feedback has been extremely positive. PeopleSpheres fills a real customer need for companies with more than 250 employees, no matter what industry they are in. We are extremely pleased to support the PeopleSpheres team in this new phase of its development.”

Eric Plantier, Partner at Blueprint Partners, financial advisor to the deal, comments: “We have the perfect cocktail to create a European leader in HR PaaS: a unique product based on next-generation architecture offering great flexibility and scalability, strong customer recruitment trends, and an experienced team with a clear and powerful vision of how the HR software market is evolving that is shared by a pool of benevolent investors. Congratulations to the PeopleSpheres team and investors on this great transaction.”
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List of participants:

For PEOPLESPHERES:

• PeopleSpheres: Philippe Bloquet (CEO), Alexandre Diard (VP Sales & Marketing), François Avedian (VP Operations), Christophe Demarre (CFO)
• Odyssée Venture (previous investor): Sébastien Sassolas.
• Blueprint Partners (financial advisor to PeopleSpheres): Eric Plantier, Marc Chancerel and Mario Yacoub
• DDG (legal advisor to PeopleSpheres): Grégoire Guignot and Alexandre Lebeau

FOR THE INVESTORS:

• Omnes: Renaud Poulard
• Irdi Capital Investissement: Julien Sainte-Catherine
• UL Invest: Laurent Useldinger and Mathieu Lamrani
• SWEN Capital Partners: Xavier Le Blan, Jean-Charles Naudin and Mélanie Le Guen
• Jones Day (legal advisor to the investors): Geoffroy Pineau-Valencienne and Jérémie Noel
• 2C Finance (financial due diligence): Benjamin Bitton, Jacques Haccoun and Claire Jacinto
• Bonna Auzas Avocats (legal due diligence): Sigmund Briant and Jean Cagne
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About PeopleSpheres:

PeopleSpheres an innovative, 100% open HR platform created in 2015 by Philippe Bloquet, a key player in global HR digitisation. The PeopleSpheres system allows companies to coordinate all their HR SaaS solutions in a unified, interconnected way and to access a marketplace of 18 partner publishers offering specific solutions for every aspect of HR, from payroll to talent management (Agrume, Asys, Cornerstone On Demand, E2time, Editions Législatives, Edoc, Flatchr, Insperity, Javelo, Lucca, Neobrain, OHRIS, QuickMS, Rheveo, Saba, Silae, Skill-up, XY Vertical). PeopleSpheres is a solution for businesses with 250 to 20,000 employees. The company has 260 customers, including Groupe Provalliance, Groupe Vitamin T and Alpine Renault. It recently raised €8.5 million from Omnes, Irdi Capital Investissement, UL Invest and SWEN Capital Partners to help drive growth and development and begin internal expansion. For more information: peoplespheres.fr

About Omnes:

Omnes is a major player in private equity and infrastructure. With €5 billion in assets under management, Omnes provides companies with the equity capital they need to grow across three key areas: Venture Capital, Growth & Buyout Capital and Infrastructure. Omnes is wholly owned by its employees. Omnes is committed to ESG issues and has set up the Omnes Foundation to fund initiatives in favour of children and young people. It is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).
For more information: www-rec.omnescapital.com

About Irdi Capital Investissement:

Based in Toulouse, Montpellier and Bordeaux, Irdi Capital Investissement has been investing for more than 35 years in companies operating in south-western France at all stages of development (venture capital, growth capital and buyout capital). It manages over €350 million through several funds, including Aelis Innovation (a €40 million professional private equity fund investing in promising innovative companies in Occitanie and Nouvelle-Aquitaine) and Inn’Vest PME Occitanie Est (a co-investment fund financed by the European Investment Fund and the Occitanie Region through the Foster TPE PME fund of funds) through which it has invested in PeopleSpheres.
For more information: irdi.fr

About UL Invest:

UL Invest is a private equity fund owned by Laurent Useldinger, founder of Ullink. It invests in European venture capital and growth capital transactions.

About SWEN Capital Partners:

SWEN Capital Partners is a benchmark player in sustainable private equity investments with more than €5.8 billion in committed funds* in Europe and a high-conviction approach that is shared by the team and reflected in its services. Owned by the OFI and Arkéa groups (the main shareholders in OFI being MACIF and Matmut) along with its employees, SWEN has been investing with a core focus on ESG and climate for nearly ten years, offering innovative and sustainable investment solutions to its clients. SWEN Capital Partners actively supports entrepreneurs and partners on labour, societal and environmental issues, an approach it believes is essential for socially useful finance. SWEN Capital Partners’ Innovation team invests in particular in French start-ups in healthcare, tech and digital, from seed capital to series B. For more information: swen-cp.fr
*total amount of commitments

About Odyssée Venture:

Odyssée Venture is a long-standing private equity investor in France and a leading independent management firm. It operates local investment, innovation and venture capital funds and is approved by the AMF. A specialist in growth capital for SMEs since 1999, it has raised nearly €600 million from more than 50,000 subscribers and backed 170 SMEs.
For more information: odysseeventure.com

About Blueprint Partners:

Blueprint Partners is a European corporate finance boutique focusing on the digital economy, with a Paris-based team and a network of partners in San Francisco and Singapore. Blueprint Partners advises growth companies on acquisitions, disposals and fundraisings. With extensive tech industry experience and international exposure, it has carried out over 100 transactions in this demanding sector. Blueprint Partners assists its clients at every step from strategy definition to deal closure. For more information: blueprint.pe

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