Business

Brazilian benefits management startup Flash raises over $100 million to expand portfolio and personnel

The Series C round was led by US-based Battery Ventures and WhaleRock, global funds still not very active in Latin America.

Co-founders of Brazil's HRTech Flash. — Ricardo Salem, co-founder and CEO; Guilherme Lane, co-founder and CTO; and Pedro Lane, co-founder of Flash. Photo: Courtesy.

LABS

09.Mar.2022 11:56 BRT
UPDATED 14:05 BRT

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Corporate benefits startup Flash raised a Series C round of more than $100 million led by two US-based global funds: Battery Ventures (this is apparently the firm’s first investment in Brasil) and Whale Rock, which has already invested in Nubank and Loft.

The new funding comes just ten months after the startup‘s Series B – led by Tiger Global and followed by monashees (who led the Series A round) and GFC (which supported the startup’s seed funding along with Citius and Kauffman Fellows). Except for the last one, all these firms participated in Flash’s Series C alongside Tencent and investors Hans Tung (GGV Capital), Rahul Mehta (co-founder of DST Global), and Kevin Efrusy (partner of Accel Capital who was one of the first investors in companies such as Facebook, Despegar, Nuvemshop, Flink, and QuintoAndar).

According to Flash, the new round came to help the company expand its portfolio and launch, still in 2022, an integrated platform for human resources teams.

Founded in 2019 by Ricardo Salem, Guilherme Lane, and Pedro Lane, Flash is an application linked to a Mastercard card, being an ideal benefits management alternative for companies that have opted for remote and hybrid work regimes. The application allows the management of benefits by HRs and employees and the hiring of new benefits, such as health plans and gym support, through the startup‘s marketplace, FlashHub. The startup offers unified management and optimized control of various benefits, including food, mobility and culture support, and, more recently, home office assistance.

“Flash has created an innovative, forward-thinking solution to enable employees to use their corporate benefits anytime, anywhere, rather than being subject to often arbitrary restrictions,” said Roger Lee, general partner at Battery Ventures, in a press release. The fund is an investor in other startups in the same segment, such as the HR management platforms Hibob (Israel) and Quinyx (Sweden).

Salem, who is also CEO at Flash, said that the startup is growing in double digits every month. “This is only possible because we deliver to the market a solution that directly impacts the routines of employees and HRs. In 2022, we will develop an even more complete and integrated product, which will enable strategic action for those who deal with people”.

Salem declined to reveal the number of customers or other company metrics to Reuters but said the new investment will also be vital in hiring new talented professionals. The goal is to double the current payroll of 320 employees by the end of the year.

Without disclosing its number of clients, Flash told LABS that among them are companies such as VTEX, Neon, Loggi, Frubana, and MadeiraMadeira.

According to the company, this is the second-largest round received by an HRTech in Brazil, behind only the $220 million round of Gympass, in June last year. The investment announced in January by Gupy came close to that: BRL 500 million (or $93 million considering the dollar exchange rate at the time).