English
The Amsterdam-based startup YourCampus has raised €500,000 in a first investment round. Dutch venture capital fund Dutch Founders Fund leads the funding round, further backed by a group of renowned entrepreneurs. The fresh growth capital allows YourCampus to launch the next version of its innovative benefits platform.
YourCampus simplifies flexible compensation of employees by enabling SMEs and scale-ups to easily reward their employees with benefits that match their situation and interests, whether they work at home, in the office or remotely. As employees choose their benefits themselves, they become more motivated, and it improves wellbeing and the relationship with the employer. Founder Florian Gendrault: “The pandemic has changed the way we view work. Salary and status are deemed less valuable. In an increasingly tight labour market, employee benefits are rapidly becoming the decisive factor for attracting or retaining talent.”
YourCampus offers employees access to a digital ‘wallet’ in a mobile app customized to their employer’s corporate identity. Employees can use their budget in an online marketplace offering a wide variety of benefits. The startup has partnered with innovative companies, such as Brand New Day, HelloFresh, Swapfiets, Felyx, Classpass, Workwize and Inuka. In the Netherlands, YourCampus has scale-ups like rapid delivery service Zapp, finance-analytics platform Owlin and growth accelerator RocketX among its first clients.
“When offering the employee benefits, we take into account differences in age, family situation, interests and place of residence,” says Gendrault. “One employee may prefer to spend its wellbeing budget differently than others. Or select a bicycle plan, while the other wants to invest in personal development. Financial situations also really differ amongst employees; some prefer to save a bit more for their retirement or get access to financial planning services. We ensure that employees find all the right benefits in one super-app that they can easily manage themselves.”
The Dutch venture capital fund Dutch Founders Fund leads the early (pre-seed) funding round of €500,000 in YourCampus. Dutch Founders Fund was founded by successful tech entrepreneurs such as Laurens Groenendijk (Just Eat, Treatwell, Hiber), Patrick Kerssemakers (Fonq) and Bas Beerens (WeTransfer). In addition, a variety of tech entrepreneurs are entering as angel investors, including Marc van Agteren (Usabilla, Surveymonkey), Omri Amir (Easytobook, Travix), Anouk de Wolff (Scaleforce Talent) and Maarten Engelen (ex-Treatwell, CTO Hiber).
Groenendijk: “The potential of YourCampus prevails in a multidisciplinary team that has previously worked successfully together at scale-ups Hiber and Usabilla, completed by Ruben van den Boogaard and his substantial experience in the field of employee benefits. We see this field as a digital growth market in the coming years. Employers who want to offer attractive benefits are often faced with a complex process with a lot of red tape. In our view, YourCampus has developed an enormously scalable solution that eliminates the major painful barriers for the employer, employee and providers.”