Austrian Speedinvest led €4M seed round for French HRtech startup Simbel

The Paris-based provider of a SaaS enabled marketplace for learning and development Simbel has received a €4 million seed investment. It was co-led by Speedinvest and Brighteye. 

• Launched in 2021 by Loïc Jourdain and Charles Gras, Simbel develops the all-in-one staff learning solution. The platform integrates with SMBs’ existing HR stack and uses periodic performance reviews as a starting point for identifying individual learning and development needs. It enables internal courses creation, external providers’ integration, access to trainings, learning workflows automation, KPI follow up. 
• Simble provides access to over 500 courses from top providers. The startup has a partnership with its first clients, including BlaBlaCar, Roland Berger, Quartus, Memo Bank, Splio.

“HR teams are supposed to inspire teams, create learning rituals, organize internal and external learning sessions, and oversee learning and development. But the reality is that SMBs typically only have one or two people to manage all these activities and still run their L&D on Excel sheets,”

CEO and co-founder Loïc Jourdain said. 

• Speedinvest is Austrian VC fund that has more than €600 million assets under management and 40 investors. The firm has backed 250+ businesses, some of which include Wefox, Bitpanda, TIER, Mobility, GoStudent, Wayflyer, CoachHub, Schüttflix, TourRadar, Adverity, and Twaice.
• The investment was also led by Belgium edtech-focused investor Brighteye, and joined by a number of angel investors.
• The fresh round will be used to accelerate Simbel’s product development, and to help small and medium-sized businesses adapt to a rapidly changing world.