We’re raising 6,8 M€ - Why ?

Back in January, we announced our initial investment round of €1,7M. 8 months later, we’re announcing our €6,8M Seed round, led by Point9. What has changed since then?

Getting reliable and up-to-date compensation market data is more important than ever

I thought compensation planning was hard a few years ago, back when I was VP People at comet, a post-Series A startup. I had no clarity on the salaries being offered to candidates by our competitors, and defining a fair compensation policy was impossible. This is what led me to create Figures, with Bastien joining me shortly after.

Well, it’s much, much harder nowadays. I don’t envy my ex-peers, the HR/People Ops leaders in the same situation I was in. Why?

There are so many conflicting dynamics currently at play:

• Market slowdown, especially for venture-backed companies. Layoffs, hire freezes, down rounds, you’ve seen the news. That must push salaries toward stagnation, right? Maybe not, as…
• …Inflation is raging everywhere! Some employees are looking for their employers to take action and improve their pay. Will this drive general salary increases? Probably, to an extent. However…
• All roles are not impacted the same. There’s still a shortage of tech talent. And beyond Tech: Product Marketers? Sales Enablement Specialists? If you think that a market slowdown will enable you to find talent in those roles easily, think again. Saying “the market has increased or decreased by X%” is pointless. It’s vastly different depending on the role.
• Remote work is changing the rules of the game. You’re not only competing with the businesses next door anymore, you’re competing with companies everywhere. They might be paying local salaries…or not. US companies paying Bay Area salaries to European workers is not just a random anecdote anymore. That is driving a lot of market changes.

More than ever, you need to have precise, and fresh market data (whatever you have from a year ago won’t do, trust me), if you want to be serious about compensation.

And you better be.

Why?

Not only because structuring your compensation policy is the only way to be fair and as unbiased as possible.

But because soon, you will have to.

Pay Transparency is inevitable

Compensation used to be taboo. A black box. This is changing, and fast.

Regulatory changes are on the way. Whether it’s forcing companies to be more transparent on their gender pay gap, or upcoming legislation on mandatory salary transparency on job ads, you will be forced to be more transparent in the future.

Moreover, more and more companies are open and transparent about their compensation policy (Buffer led the way). Your employees are reading those articles and blog posts. They will come to you with questions if they have not done so yet (lucky you!). “What’s our compensation policy?”, “Can I know my pay range?”, “How is my pay increase decided?”, etc.

You have a few options, you can either get ahead in structuring and potentially openly share your compensation policy, or you can wait and be forced to by internal and external pressure. It’s a matter of being proactive over being reactive. In our era of “The Great Resignation”, looking unstructured and unprepared might backfire quickly.

It feels like a no brainer.

That’s where Figures can help

Back in January, we were helping 220 companies set up their compensation policy leveraging our own reliable, real-time market data and our analysis of their workforce (including their gender pay gap, or real-time market positioning of their employees). We now have 750 clients, in the UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, the Nordics… Not only start-ups anymore, too!

While that’s a testament to the value we can provide clients today, we won’t stop there. I can’t feel at peace knowing how much compensation-related work is happening in spreadsheets or emails. Or as long as I keep talking to people who just don’t know, or understand what their compensation package is. Or managers, who feel helpless trying to decide how to allocate their compensation review budget.

Our compensation benchmark and analysis product is the core of our value proposition as of today. It’s the vital foundation of what we're building and will keep improving (coming soon: reliable information on equity practices, and real-time tracking of market movements).

But it's just the first brick.

In the next few months, we will help companies:

• Forecast their upcoming salary review budget
• Create salary ranges aligned with market data
• Plan their salary increases
• Communicate compensation to candidates
• Provide managers access to their team’s compensation
• Give employees an understanding of their current package

We’re not building a compensation benchmark product. We’re building the go-to product for HR/People Ops leaders, founders, executives, managers, employees, and candidates regarding compensation. Fully integrated with the rest of the HR Tech stack (HRIS, Applicant Tracking Systems, Performance Review platforms, Cap-table Management Systems…).

I can’t overstate how excited I am to be on this journey, along with the incredible team we have assembled, the investors that chose to believe in us (79 of them now!), and the clients that trust us to help them manage compensation in a fair, and efficient way.

It’s time to get serious about compensation, and we’re here to help.