Clare-based HRLocker seeks €2m in funding round

Company plans expansion into UK market

Clare-based HR software company HRLocker is seeking to raise funding, with a pre-seed round of €2 million.

Clare-based HR software company HRLocker is seeking to raise funding, with a pre-seed round of €2 million.

The company, which is currently valued at €8 million, is offering a 20 per cent stake in the company.

The funding will be used to scale the business and fund its formal entry into the UK market and fund new features.

It is the first time HRLocker, which was founded by chief executive Adam Coleman in 2014, has sought external funding, opting instead to bootstrap its development.

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The company originally started as a HR consultancy. "Any money that we made with a consultancy, we invested into the company so we've been self invested up until now," said chief operating officer Crystel Robbins Rynne. "We have had a very good last year so it's been, frankly, we are now in a position where we're looking to rapidly grow the company."

Memorandum

Mr Coleman said some €200,000 has already been raised prior to the release of the investment memorandum. It has set up an EIIS fund in Ireland that will allow people to invest for amounts over €1,000.

However, Ms Robbins Rynne said the company is also hoping to attract a commercial investor with experience of growing a Software as a Service company, who can bring their expertise to HRLocker.

The company, which said last year it planned to create 50 jobs to deal with the surge in demand from the pandemic, had €1.1 million in recurring revenue coming into 2022.

“Currently our sales are growing 56 per cent year on year for the last two years. So we’re ahead of target this year,” she said. “We’re looking at just harnessing that growth and seeing can we obviously continue that growth in Ireland, but also can we replicate it.”

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien

Ciara O'Brien is an Irish Times business and technology journalist